academic frustration, or, burned out?

[arguchik]

i've been thinking a lot lately about academia and my own work, wondering why i'm finding it so hard to get motivated to *do* my work. i think i'm starting to take steps toward an answer, but it's inchoate. i'm still interested in my topic, but i'm getting very bored by academic arguments in general. i sit down to read a new piece of academic writing, or to review a theoretical text i've read before, and with very few exceptions i just can't get into it. i can understand it, parse its key insights and major contributions, its "interventions" and its "stakes." but some part of me wants to find a more immediate way of communicating the things i think i have to say--lol, what comes to mind most often lately is "cracking heads," but that seems less than optimal for lots of reasons. then again, i don't think i have anything all that insightful, intelligent, or revolutionary to say...and this isn't a simple case of self-deprecation here. i think i'm pretty smart and all that, and i *get* what i'm reading, i don't feel intimidated by it or anything. i just don't find it terribly inspiring somehow, or feel that i have much (if anything) to add to the discussion it sustains. whenever i pull one thread or another, the discussion i am on the threshold of "officially" entering (via the act of writing a dissertation about it) boils down into such *eternally perennial* debates and conceptual dichotomies as: nature vs. nurture; nature vs. culture; the individual vs. society or the collective; free will vs. determinism; the nature of consciousness; science vs. religion; science vs. politics (i.e. science's conceit that it pursues knowledge in a strictly disinterested fashion, and that the knowledge it produces is politically neutral); the knowability of "things in themselves" (ala kant's noumena vs. phenomena, and vs. post-structuralism/deconstruction's textuality and the "shifting center," whether or not there's a "there there"); etc. etc. etc. since we keep coming back to these questions, each time arguing them in slightly different terms and with slightly different outcomes and insights, i *get* that they are important, central to most (if not all) human projects of meaning-making throughout the ages, including art, literature, philosophy, science, religion, etc. but... and... ???

my literature students all start out saying that literature exists to "express emotion," or that that's its main contribution to the world, or whatever. i respond, "ok, good. that's a start. so, emotion about what and in response to what? whence and wherefore this huge outpouring of emotion?" and more importantly: what *difference* does it make, what difference *can* it make?

that's the question i keep asking about what i read and what i'm supposed to be working on. (i ask it about my teaching, too, in slightly different terms.) it seems presumptuous to want to make any difference at all (who the fuck am i to quibble with plato, kant, derrida, butler, marx, benjamin, balibar, jameson, et. al.?)--the discussion has gotten so huge, esoteric, and complex that a desire for making a "difference" plays an awful lot like a simple desire for *fame* (which in academia, increasingly, seems to be *required* for job security). and i'm *definitely* not smart enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any of that crew. so...short of that, what can i or should i seek to accomplish? and beyond what i'm seeking to accomplish...what am i *actually* accomplishing? anything at all? does it matter?

Comments

[wondrousbeauty.livejournal.com]

Hey Sharon, it's Sharleen. I found you through a comment you left in Michelle's LJ. Hope you don't mind my reading. This post sums up how I feel just about every day. I've made my work into something I do to honor my parents instead of about doing something "important" academically because the world would hum along quite well without all my BS (which is important and critical but a tiny blip, really). I think others have to come up with their own motivations too when they come to feel how you are.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

no, of course i don't mind you reading. i'm flattered, if anything. i didn't realize you had an LJ too (probably there's a bunch of UW grads pouring out their hearts on LJ...because god knows we aren't allowed to pour them out at UW, LOL, and hearts must be poured, it's gotta be a law of thermodynamics or something)--i will return the flattery of reading sometime... (ack, see it just sounds presumptuous when i put it that way). mind if i add you as a friend?

take care,
sh.

I could have written that post

[mlf-poet.livejournal.com]

Hey, how'd you get into my head already? Very similar thoughts here.

Except your can spell. And type.

I'm in Seattle! And will be on campus all day. Let's connect ASAP. Will e-mail. And try to write in complete sentences.

Communication hard. Sleep. . . sooo very good.

Re: I could have written that post

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

hey there--by "campus all day" do you mean today (9/20)? i was on campus this morning...home now...will be on campus again tomorrow (wednesday) for the 2nd day of 104/105 orientation, which runs from 10-3. i'll also be on campus friday, and possibly thursday afternoon.

be well--hope you get some of that mysterious thing called "sleep."

Hmm..

[the-kender.livejournal.com]

"so...short of that, what can i or should i seek to accomplish? and beyond what i'm seeking to accomplish...what am i *actually* accomplishing? anything at all? does it matter?"

So how is it you wish to better the world? Or better yourself and, in that, better the world? Academia is merely that stepping stone towards your dream. So don't ask what is you you want to accomplish, but what is your driving force for betterment in the world? Self or mankind? Sure this is just some kind of rephrasing of what you said... but there's something to be said about simplicity and dickering terminology... what do you dream...

Re: Hmm..

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

oh you know...the usual...social justice, an end to strife and hunger. not to be flip, but sometimes the "bigness" of it all makes me roll my eyes at myself. and really what i dream is to find a job doing what i love (which is teaching and writing) that also leaves time for activism. by that i mean *direct* activism, because i consider teaching and writing to be activist work as well, just a bit less direct maybe.

[beneluxboy.livejournal.com]

I think occasionally about going back to school for a serious academic career, but I've wondered if I'd have anything important to say or if I'd discover anything truly useful (or if I'd fail at the politics and fame). Fortunately for me, I'm more interested in my artistic expression than equalling or topping those regarded as our great thinkers, and there's a million outlets for the stuff boiling up from people's subconscious minds.

Perhaps the value of your work won't be evident until after the fact— certainly the impact cannot be known beforehand— which means that you need to do it anyway, with faith and passion. But if you're low on passion, and if your intended vehicle no longer seems adequate to the goal... I hope you meet someone insightful who's faced a similar situation. :)

Maybe the difference that you hope to make will manifest from your effect on a few others who add to your contribution something necessary for others to see it as important or useful. Maybe your goal work is just the start of what would need to be a longer, greater effort for a significant difference to be made.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

thank you...this is some much-needed perspective. yes, academic work is part of a larger project, more like a larger conversation or *collective* project; of course my own personal work is (hopefully) inaugurating a life-long investment and engagement with this material and milieu...so probably part of what's giving me pause is your basic, garden variety, "big picture" anxiety.

but please, tell me more about these million outlets! i know of precious few, and i'm sort of peripheral to most of them, enjoying them vicariously or whatever.

[beneluxboy.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I have a generalised feeling of being able to find some kind of venue for my creative impulses. Maybe I'm delusional, but it seems like between the Internet and living in Seattle, that I can find somewhere to imagine myself an artist enough to find at least a couple people who will observe the work. (Fame and fortune and everything that goes with it (http://www.queenwords.com/lyrics/songs/sng11_17.shtml), however, is a more difficult goal.)

membership has its privilages

[goofy-punk-dad.livejournal.com]

Hey. I actually had to join Live Journal so that I could leave you a comment. But it took so long to register I half forgot what I was going to say. LOL.

I think it was basically something about how your are making ripples and making waves in the sea of life even if you're just thrashing around trying not to drown sometimes . . . about how important it is to realize that you have amazing gifts and sometimes you just have to trust you're NOT wasting them . . . about pursuing your super-secret vision of yourself (who you are and who you're becoming) even if it sometimes seems crazy. And about living in that that sad-happy state of simultaneously being and becoming.

My understanding of the work you're doing and the world (academia) you're part of is really, really limited. But something tells me (grin) you don't have to worry about losing yourself there. Something tells me that you have the moxie & integrity to make a difference without compromising.

Re: membership has its privilages

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

lol--i think you can leave anonymous postings. it might have been fun trying to figure out who you were... my friend M did that awhile back. i'm going to add you as a friend now...is that ok? you're a friend, right? right? ;-)

thanx for your comments...stick around, i'm sure you'll get to hear all about what academia is and what i'm up to in it. ad nauseum, b/c it's a thrilling roller coaster ride. some days i love it, and some days i think it's stealing my soul, my body (my ass anyway, which would prefer to run more miles than my school schedule allows--lol), my heart, my youth (what's left of it, which they will have to pry from my dead hands someday), and...yep, my mind too. but it also pushes me and rewards me like nothing else i've ever tried before, so i'll keep doing it. i once said to my advisor back in vermont, "but if i continue on for a ph.d. i'll probably be 40 before i finish." and of course she said, "you're going to be 40 anyway, right? might as well be 40 with a ph.d. if that's what you want."