Grad studies

Many people have started to ask me about my intended course of study and where I am applying to. First the easy question. So far, I have applications being sent to Idaho State University, University of Utah, Washington State University - Pullman, and University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. I am looking for some other University in the mid-west to apply to as well. I have found through research that the regions of the country that are consistently hire the most professors are the Northwest, Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic. So I am focusing my search for schools to those regions. Ultimately, I want to end up at a junior college or a small university where the focus will be on the students rather than on research and bringing prestige to the university down that route. Because of this, I want a program that will have some emphasis on pedagogy - for this reason, ISU would be my top choice (not to mention it has a 94% placement history for tenure track jobs among its graduates). However, WSU has a great program that is much more established than ISU. UofU program is pretty good, and it has a great philosophy program that I can tap into (more on that later). UM-TC is just an all around great school. I would like one more in the Mid-west just to get a round 5 options. So what do I want to focus on?
Well, as I said before, I want pedagogy to be some part of it, but I am too in love with abstract ideas to focus completely on something useful as pedagogy. On face value, I want to specialize in Romanticism. In particular, I want to focus on how Romanticism acted as a transition between German Idealism to Existentialism. I think that it is interesting how a movement that was strictly philosophical could be incorporated with a movement that is mostly literary, and then (I feel) morph into a movement that splits pretty evenly into literary and philosophical writing. If I can pull this off, I could possibly find a job for a position in 18th, 19th, or early 20th century lit (although I wont hold my breath). In particular, I want to focus on some of the dark romantics (Hawthorne, Shelley, Byron, etc) and the parallels that they share with the first Existentialist - Kierkegaard (a contemporary of many of them). I am in the process now of writing a paper comparing Hawthorne's The Marble Faun with Albert Camus' The Fall. I am looking at how the two men use the symbol of the Christian doctrine of the Fall of Adam to shed light as to the meaning of life. Since both men have radically different backgrounds with Christianity it is interesting how they are both drawn to Christian doctrine to explore the human condition. It is also interesting all of the similarities they draw from the symbolism and where they depart.
Anyway. Since this is what I want to do, I need a program that will allow me access to a good philosophy department. I just hope that I am able to get in to a good program.