The commenter above is referring to me, I believe. I was accepted to Northwestern and Princeton for the PhD and NYU for the MA. I'm at Princeton. Drafts of my SoP are here and here (the first is the more finished and comprehensive).
A few notes:
I agree with others' critiques of the first paragraph.
I found Joyce’s manipulation of both language and gender roles particularly interesting, and focused my research on feminist and gender studies, primarily in regards to Ulysses. This needs to be more specific, I think-can you say a little about what you think Joyce does with language & gender roles, and how you used the feminist/gender studies lens to approach Ulysses?
In what ways, I began to wonder, are my students intentionally or unintentionally forging the uncreated conscience of a race through their writing? Should the composition classroom be a politically charged arena in which students forge an identity through their writing, or is this uncreated conscience merely a forgery of identity, reinforced by dominant ideologies? This just doesn't make sense to me. I think you could clarify by quickly parsing the quotation when first you use it, or alternately just by rephrasing here.
This curiosity quickly grew into an obsession, and has fueled a desire to further my research in literature and composition/rhetoric studies. Furthermore, I wish to focus my inquiries in these fields through the lens of postcolonial theory. The "obsession" thing I think goes a little too far, but more importantly, specify here too. How do you plan to marry a traditional literature methodology and focus with rhet/comp? My understanding is that the two do different things and prepare graduates for different career tracks. Which one do you want? And crucially, what is your research in literature going to be about?
I think you need to answer, too, what my undergrad thesis advisor called "the so-what question": why do you want to do the things you want to do? Why do they matter?
A few notes:
I agree with others' critiques of the first paragraph.
I found Joyce’s manipulation of both language and gender roles particularly interesting, and focused my research on feminist and gender studies, primarily in regards to Ulysses.
This needs to be more specific, I think-can you say a little about what you think Joyce does with language & gender roles, and how you used the feminist/gender studies lens to approach Ulysses?
In what ways, I began to wonder, are my students intentionally or unintentionally forging the uncreated conscience of a race through their writing? Should the composition classroom be a politically charged arena in which students forge an identity through their writing, or is this uncreated conscience merely a forgery of identity, reinforced by dominant ideologies?
This just doesn't make sense to me. I think you could clarify by quickly parsing the quotation when first you use it, or alternately just by rephrasing here.
This curiosity quickly grew into an obsession, and has fueled a desire to further my research in literature and composition/rhetoric studies. Furthermore, I wish to focus my inquiries in these fields through the lens of postcolonial theory.
The "obsession" thing I think goes a little too far, but more importantly, specify here too. How do you plan to marry a traditional literature methodology and focus with rhet/comp? My understanding is that the two do different things and prepare graduates for different career tracks. Which one do you want? And crucially, what is your research in literature going to be about?
I think you need to answer, too, what my undergrad thesis advisor called "the so-what question": why do you want to do the things you want to do? Why do they matter?
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