Quick, what schools should I apply to?
November 22, 2008 12:48 PM   Subscribe

Quick, what schools should I apply to? (PhD, English-and-related-fields)

So, I'm coming out of an MA program in English and applying to a great heap of schools for my PhD, but before I finalize the list of schools I'm sending my recommenders I'd figure I'd ask the hivemind if there are more programs I should be interested in.

Most of the stuff I'm working with involves material that wanders a bit afield; for example, my writing sample (and primary current interests) involve using Marxist geography (Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, etc.) to talk about computer-mediated communication, though I've also got a passing interest in science studies. Right now I'm applying to English and media departments at schools that have big-name geographers (CUNY, UCLA) and schools with media programs that seem like they're amenable to what I do (Brown, for example). I'm wondering first of all whether there are any English departments people can think of that I definitely need to be looking at, and secondly about whether people can think of schools where there are programs outside of English that I might want to give a shot. As of right now I am not applying to any straight-up Geography departments, though I'm definitely persuadable.

Huge thanks-in-advance to anyone with tips on where I can go with this collection of interests.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick to Education (5 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Work with Lisa Parks at UCSB or anyone at Georgia Tech's School of Literature, Communication and Culture. Also, apply to the UCSC HizCon program because everyone there is brilliant.

David Harvey's at CUNY, but they don't fund their graduate students very well, I hear. However, if you go to any school in the New York consortium (NYU, Columbia, CUNY, Princeton, Rutgers, Fordham, Stony Brook, the New School) you can take classes at any of the other schools. That increases the number of people you can work with considerably. Maybe you should apply to NYU's Department of Media, Culture and Communication.
posted by billtron at 2:38 PM on November 22, 2008 [1 favorite]


Oh, I forgot about Goldsmiths' Department of Media and Communication.
posted by billtron at 2:41 PM on November 22, 2008


Response by poster: MCC at NYU is probably my dream program, if I can get in. Thanks for the Goldsmiths suggestion; I never even thought about London. Now to figure out if it's too late to apply...
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:18 PM on November 22, 2008


Really think about WHO you want to work with rather than where. Who are the scholars that you've cited the most in your MA thesis?

IMHO, applying "quickly" to these type of programs is a little tough, but maybe you work better under pressure than I do.

And, as always, LJ's applyingtograd is a great community for this type of question.
posted by k8t at 3:30 PM on November 22, 2008


Response by poster: So, after looking at Goldsmiths' materials I realized that in large part the reason why I haven't been looking at schools outside the US and Canada is that there's just no way (as far as I can tell) that I can get funding. Oh well. Laying back and thinking of England was fun, even so.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:43 PM on November 23, 2008


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