MA/MPhil and PhD English Applicants 2020

Dang! Well here’s hoping indeed!

In the meantime... it looks like we’re all interested in some varied areas, and like @SixteenHundred pointed out, nobody is being snooty about their reading. So what’s been everyone’s least favorite assigned books? 😁 Mine is definitely My Antonia. Why write a whole book about a place whose greatest achievement to date is “Car Henge”, and even that didn’t exist yet in the book?

Dang! Well here’s hoping indeed!

In the meantime... it looks like we’re all interested in some varied areas, and like @SixteenHundred pointed out, nobody is being snooty about their reading. So what’s been everyone’s least favorite assigned books? 😁 Mine is definitely My Antonia. Why write a whole book about a place whose greatest achievement to date is “Car Henge”, and even that didn’t exist yet in the book?

Dang! Well here’s hoping indeed!

In the meantime... it looks like we’re all interested in some varied areas, and like @SixteenHundred pointed out, nobody is being snooty about their reading. So what’s been everyone’s least favorite assigned books? 😁 Mine is definitely My Antonia. Why write a whole book about a place whose greatest achievement to date is “Car Henge”, and even that didn’t exist yet in the book?

Dang! Well here’s hoping indeed!

In the meantime... it looks like we’re all interested in some varied areas, and like @SixteenHundred pointed out, nobody is being snooty about their reading. So what’s been everyone’s least favorite assigned books? 😁 Mine is definitely My Antonia. Why write a whole book about a place whose greatest achievement to date is “Car Henge”, and even that didn’t exist yet in the book?

Also, while not a book, having to read Freud's writing about femininity (to quote: "it seems that women have made few contributions to the discoveries and inventions in the history of civilisation...") was pretty painful!

Anyone contacted the AD to ask how strikes will affect the application process? And has anyone heard back from other places they've applied to?

Sounds oddly fascinating!

Uhm... you know that's a surprisingly hard question, to spark some controversy I have to say Tristram Shandy because I have hated nothing in my life like that book. It's brilliant and radical in so many ways, but I still hate it. Every aspect of it. I have grown to hate it even more because, since it's considered such an important book, I have had to read it twice already and god I hope it won't come across it again in my studies.

Also, while not a book, having to read Freud's writing about femininity (to quote: "it seems that women have made few contributions to the discoveries and inventions in the history of civilisation...") was pretty painful!

No, I'd imagine they're not sure yet based on previous strikes last year. And I have an offer for a PhD at one other university (which came through gratifyingly fast!), but it's a little meaningless without funding for me, as I can't self-fund.

Hi everyone! English PhD (medieval) applicant here! Waiting anxiously to be moved from degree committee like everyone. I am currently an Mphil student here at Cambridge.
Currently re-reading the Morte Darthur as I am writing my Mphil dissertation on it

Congrats! I hope your funding works out somewhere I’m in a similar boat with two wait-list emails for US schools this week, but I can’t imagine anyone turning down their spots. Did you apply to several schools?

I love the Morte Darthur! I'm not a medievalist but I had a great time reading it at undergrad. What's your dissertation about?


Thank you - and people do have to turn spots down, especially if they apply to multiple places! I have a friend who was waitlisted for funding in London last year and received an offer. I applied to three UK PhD programmes including Cambridge, and three separate funding consortia - not many but it was still very time-consuming!

Hi everyone! English PhD (medieval) applicant here! Waiting anxiously to be moved from degree committee like everyone. I am currently an Mphil student here at Cambridge.
Currently re-reading the Morte Darthur as I am writing my Mphil dissertation on it

AAppreciate it's only February, but man does it feel like Eng fac are taking their time this year. I wonder if they had an unusually high volume of applicants or something? Out of all the people who have applied for PhDs and, especially, MPhils, I would expected that at least a few of us would be in the first batch getting creamed off by the committee, but nothing. I honestly reckon it could be another month before we hear anything. At this rate they'll have posted the funding decisions before the basic offers!

Omg no!!! I'm writing my dissertation on My Antonia (+ Pale Fire & The Black Prince) and I'm sad to hear you don't like it! I LOVE it, although think it's more interesting as a novel if you read Jim as an unreliable narrator. As for my least favourite books, all the course reading I've hated has (strangely) been contemporary - we did some genuinely *bad* novels for a global queer reading course I did, although I think that is probably more to do with the fact that there still isn't an huge range of LGBT fiction being published, esp. outside of Europe/America. Have also hated every Margaret Atwood novel I've ever studied - I don't understand why people love her so much!

Sounds oddly fascinating!

Uhm... you know that's a surprisingly hard question, to spark some controversy I have to say Tristram Shandy because I have hated nothing in my life like that book. It's brilliant and radical in so many ways, but I still hate it. Every aspect of it. I have grown to hate it even more because, since it's considered such an important book, I have had to read it twice already and god I hope it won't come across it again in my studies.

Also, while not a book, having to read Freud's writing about femininity (to quote: "it seems that women have made few contributions to the discoveries and inventions in the history of civilisation...") was pretty painful!

My dissertation is on agency and consent in the Morte, focusing on how rash promises can affect women's agency over their own bodies. I absolutely love my dissertation topic and want to expand it in the PhD (If they'll let me haha).

I had """a feeling"""" it was gonna be today we'd hear something. Literally convinced myself that it would be today for no other reason than I wanted it to be 😂 godssake

Oh, cool! Does that mean you're supervised by James Wade then? He taught me medieval when I was an undergraduate there. Lovely bloke

Yes! He's been a really great supervisor so far, put him down as my PhD supervisor too

Hi everyone! English PhD (medieval) applicant here! Waiting anxiously to be moved from degree committee like everyone. I am currently an Mphil student here at Cambridge.
Currently re-reading the Morte Darthur as I am writing my Mphil dissertation on it