Hello, I'm planning to start applying for PhD programs in the US but I'm not too sure where I belong???? My research involves eastern civilization (China) and western civil. (Europe, US) in the fields of history, anthropology, philosophy art and culture in general, all of which involve very little scientific rigor. My attitude is more metaphysical and based on broad generalizations....do I fit anywhere? wht school am I looking for? can anyone help me?

Thanks for your enquiry. Very inspiring. If I were you, I would try to avoid to say foolish things like "my research is based on broad generalizations" - no academic likes to hear these sentences and they shouldn't appear in your application, if avoidable.

Maybe a Master in one or all of these subject disciplines would be useful to help you where you belong. It is importatant to understand that a PhD is usually a very in-depth and narrow academic enquiry in one particular field. At least you need to know this field before you apply, you can later still go into all this multi-disciplinary stuff; however, in reality it will very difficult to publish later as journal editors like to bounce you from one subject area to another.

Thanks Otto,

In that case let me be more specific. I want to compare diasporic jewish communities in Europe with Chinese communities in South East-Asia. My angle is to analyze these communities' behavior using the Bible and the confucian analects. I will try to narrow this down to something even more specific but I really want to know what kind of departments will be suitable for me. Some told me to try Anthropology, others said Cultural studies while some claim its Religious Studies or even Philisophy......What do you think??

yair, i suppose it depends on the approach you are taking.
you say you will be studying 'communities' and you say you will be using texts (bible, etc.) this is a bit confusing to me, as how should you study present day communities by using ancient texts?
i assume you mean you will be studying the communities and putting what you find in RELATION to the texts. if that is the case, i would say any of the social studies would do. if you put your focus on the texts, and study them in terms of 'literature', but in relation to the communities, then i'd go for cultural studies. if your focus is really on the texts and you are concerned with philosophical questions, and the present day communities are just an aside, then i'd go for philosophy or perhaps religion studies. the latter, i believe the approaches are very different from department to department; in some relious studies it is more philosophical-theological, in others more social science.