Research and That Lightbulb

I'm actually a huge research nerd. I find research intimidating, but I love, in the age of the internet, how much you can unearth about a subject, and how quickly. (What researchers and students did BEFORE the internet I sincerely never want to know. Terrifying.) Research was, at one point, my profession, something I was paid to get up every morning and do; that was absolutely one of the happiest and most fulfilling periods of my life.

Now, of course, I pay other people to let me do research, to give me a direction and an idea. It's interesting and challenging in a different way, and unlike the extremely guided work I did as an undergraduate, generally allows for a great deal of agency. I also happen to love my subject matter and the different questions it allows me to ask. This semester, I have committed to writing a paper on the antichoice movement's targeting of African-American women, particularly through visual media, and a Marxist analysis of Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left." So. That should be. good.

The thing is, during research there is this LIGHTBULB moment. It's amazing. It's so cool. It's the moment where you stumble upon an article and you think, "OH MY GOD, THIS IS IT, THIS ARTICLE IS THE ARTICLE THAT MAKES MY PAPER, IT PULLS IT ALL TOGETHER, THIS IS THE ARTICLE I WROTE THIS PAPER HOPING TO FIND." You think this, as indicated, in ALL CAPS, in a circular way, happy ideas chasing one another around in your mind like so many hamsters on a wheel, and you can hardly breath as you start searching for the full text. Of course, you have based this joy, this glee, this conviction entirely off of a title and, very occasionally, an abstract, BUT THAT IS NO DETERRENT. Naturally this article, this essential, paper-making article, is not available online. You cannot find the full text and google, sweet sweet google, of all things, is insisting it does not exist, although you have a title and an author and HOW CAN THAT BE, but OK, keep breathing. You check interlibrary loan - nada. Not happening. You despair. You awake in the morning. You try again. You despair some more. And then a week later, another related search makes you realize this "article" is actually a chapter in a book, and the library has two copies just. sitting. on the shelf. Your heart rate goes back up. This is it. It's aaaaaaaaallllllllll comin' together.

And then you pray, as you descend the library stairs, that this article is everything you hoped it was, or even just a fraction, or maybe even just tangentially related to your topic, because you realize you have based this hope for fulfillment on a title, a wing and a prayer.

Oh yeah, I love this stuff. And in case you're wondering, the chapter is "11. High and Low: The Transformation of the Rape-Revenge Movie – Carol J. Clover" in Pam Cook and Philip Dodd's Women and Film: A Sight and Sound Reader, and I'll know Monday if there is a Patron Saint of Desperate Grad Students, and if s/he heard my prayers.