ENGL 592 A: Graduate English Studies

This is a new 5-credit course/workshop that will provide graduate students:

 1) with as much how-to information as possible about academic life, both as a grad student and after:  how do you find out about conference paper and book reviewing possibilities?  What are the top-tier journals in your field?  How and where should you begin to publish?  What about book reviews?  Grant-getting?  What is public scholarship?  How do you apply for funding from the Simpson Center? How do you do ethnographic research? What about Human Subject review?  What registers as interdisciplinary scholarship? How do you survive graduate school?  How do you balance teaching, scholarship, service and the rest of your life? What do you need to know about the details of exams and dissertation writing?  What if you'd like to teach in a community college?  What's the job search like?

 2) a sense of life and careers after graduate school in professions in addition to college and university teaching:  What is "the versatile Ph.D"? Where and how do you look beyond grad school to careers in fields outside of  teaching? What if you'd like a job in arts administration, high-tech, editing or publishing, non-profits or academic administration?  How do you translate your scholarly knowledge, skills and abilities into a job search?  How do you continue your intellectual life after grad school?  I plan to invite professionals from outside the department to meet with us on some of these issues.

3) a chance to reflect individually on the shape of one's own scholarly work and contexts:  How do I find interesting, relevant contexts for my literary readings?  What if my main interest is not in literature, but in other cultural objects or in theory? What if my main interest is in literature and studying theory/or cultural objects  seems unnecessary to my project?  Is my reading and course work so far coalescing into an exciting project for the future? What am I doing in grad school anyway?  How do I take care of myself and live well in my non-grad-school life?  What about conflicts between academics and other things I want to do?

The course is designed primarily for those in their first or second year in the program, but interested others are welcome to join. Topics and discussions will also depend in part in what you'd like to know about, think about, discuss with others. There will be class presentations so we can teach each other, and short papers meditating on ideas that are important to you individually.  If you have questions, email me at callen@uw.edu. I'd like to include anything you think would be of help to you right now in your current thinking as a grad student.