My research is not meaningful

[out_of_the_office]

Dear forumites:

I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to deal with feeling as though one's research is not valuable. I have a Ph.D. in literature, but this area no longer holds the allure for me that it once did--Although I love research, I now see it as a waste of time to publish literary criticism. I don't even like to read it anymore. However, I am not trained in much of anything else (I can do cultural studies, but often this takes a literary bent due to my graduate training). I would like to move on to doing research that feels more important, that makes a "real" contribution, but I am not sure how to do that, especially considering this would require specialization that I do not have. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

-Out_of_the_Office

[downer]

What research do you admire? What counts for you as making a real contribution?

I can easily imagine getting cynical about lit crit, but is there none of it that you still admire? Maybe you need to go back to what got you into it in the first place?

[pedanticromantic]

Do you have tenure?

[Hibush]

This is a useful realization, if it doesn't get you down too much, in driving towards a more personally rewarding research direction. In my field, there is quite a bit of what is called outcomes funding. The funder asks, "how will society be different as a result of your work?" Then you work backwards from that goal to what you are going to do.

You might try that approach. The outcome should be something meaningful to you. If you need money to do it, it also needs to be very explicitly meaningful to your funder.  You can change "society" to another entity if that seems too ambitious or anthropocentric.

With the ultimate goal in mind, you can connect the dots to a proximate result that you can accomplish using your research skills and subject matter knowledge. Chunk the job up in small enough pieces to have students involved. Then your impact is even greater.

[quasihumanist]

I'm an abstract, theoretical mathematician whose work is also of no practical value.  What's more, my work is 15 or 20 layers of abstraction from what one might consider primary texts, not just 3 or 4 in the case of someone in literary criticism, so it's accessible to an even smaller audience.  Here is how I have found meaning in my research work:

1) Our disciplines teach students to think in various ways, and these modes of thought develop their general abilities even if they don't every use them in their pure form.  One has to think about something, and it's rather fake to think about something that's already known.  So doing research makes us authentic models of the kinds of thinking we want our students to learn to do.  Our research also opens up new questions and lines of inquiry, giving future scholars (especially our graduate students) more opportunities to model authentic thinking.

2) Our research display new examples of the possibilities of human thought and hence add to the glory of humanity and its creator.

[aside]

I'm a music theorist/musicologist.  I understand your feelings about your research.  I'm not curing cancer, saving the environment, solving the world's big problems, etc.  My audience is small because my work is highly specialized, yet my work is of interest and importance to that audience, and I find meaning in that.  In addition, I am using my gifts for and understanding of music, gifts and understanding not everyone has.  Your feelings about your research are perfectly natural.  Give it time, try to find research topics that interest you, and keep in mind that you are using your gifts, gifts that not everyone has.

[Parasaurolophus]

I don't suppose literary meta-criticism would seem any more meaningful? (One the plus side, it might have the advantage of helping to guide the literary-theoretical discussions?)

Have you had a look at what's going on in cognate fields recently, especially in direct relation to literature/criticism? What's new with the psychology of text-processing, or the philosophy of literature (there's more going on on the analytic side of things these days, but maybe continental is more your cup of tea; either way!)? Maybe there are more interesting collaborations or contributions to be made on that side of things.

[spork]

Do you have tenure?

The most important question. And even if you have tenure, what kinds of research count toward promotion/greater job security where you are working?

Most of what's published in my field (which is not literature) is terribly-written arcane garbage. I've migrated to researching effective pedagogy.

I have, on occasion, presented papers at regional MLA conferences. I can understand why you are frustrated -- scholarship consisting of presentations about language that use made-up language, with no data to support whatever badly-formed argument is being presented.

[downer]

Another thing I have found is that it is important to find a group of like minded scholars with whom to interact. We get that in grad school (well, ideally we do) but after it is harder to sustain, especially if you are not in a top research university and don't have a generous travel budget for conferences.

I have found that committing to a relatively small group of people of people interested in similar research, who I see on a pretty regular basis and interact with frequently online, makes a big difference. One can feed off their enthusiasm and be included in joint research projects. It does help to find people who you actually like, and can also be friends with.

[Ruralguy]

I was feeling that way too, plus my slightly theoretically bent mind is not as sharp as it once was, so I am not sure how many more of those sorts of papers I can write in my esoteric area, so I changed, at least for now, to writing "popular" books as well as pedagogical and perhaps original fundamental research in an engineering area that relates to my pure science area. I should say that I reached full professor 6 years ago at a SLAC that doesn't emphasize research, so at this point, I can kind of do as I please.

[Cloudwatcher]

I feel the same way and am in the same field, OP. The questions above about tenure and your context are key since the way to deal with this loss of faith (as I call it) will depend on how much and what kind of research you have to produce.

I am at a liberal arts college with a minimal research requirement for tenure—teaching and service are the priorities. I am in my 40s, so plenty of years left, but am a full professor and have no interest in much of the scholarship and have stopped presenting at most conferences in our field. Happily, however, I got into a large project and have my first book coming out this fall. I realized that this project, which did draw on my background in literature, but led me to become immersed in two other interconnected disciplines, was what I needed to feel fired up about research and scholarship. It isn't going to cure cancer, but it makes a contribution to several fields and has introduced me to fantastic new conferences and colleagues outside of literature that I love working with.

Are you at a place that values the scholarship of teaching and learning? If so, can you get excited about turning something you have done in class, or want to do, into a research project you could eventually publish? Are there opportunities to team teach or teach interdisciplinary courses—these might lead to new collaborations or ideas for research paths?

Have you done much archival work? The book I am publishing incorporates a lot of archival sources, and I found I love nothing better than combing through archives. Of course, it is time consuming and sometimes expensive, but I was able to cobble together some funding for short trips to collect material. Maybe a trip like that would revive your interests and allow you to use your training in new ways?

[Wahoo Redux]

I think, OP, you've gotten caught up in the general malaise facing the humanities in the age of swollen tuition, wage gaps, and conservative double think.  We are constantly forced to defend ourselves, and some people are so superficial that they cannot see the value in studying one of the oldest and most constant human activities, the creation of art and literature.

We also live in an age after the big "discoveries" of people like Derrida, Bloom, Vendler, Fish, Frye, Butler, etc. and it's hard to look at our comparatively limited monographs and forget that those folks produced a great deal of writing, only a portion of which is ever worth the gold medal.

I personally research and publish as a great way to learn new things.  And! Importantly, I have found that colleagues really respect the effort.  If nothing else, you and I contribute to the great volume of human knowledge and ideas, which is how we've landed in the comparatively safest, most literate, and most peaceful era in human history.

Keep the faith, colleague.   

Take comfort in the idea that there are people who actually

[mamselle]

         ....poster rhapsodically subsumed to a higher plane, apparently.....

M.

[Myword]

What research is very meaningful to anyone besides an in group of specialists? Some scholars, including me, don't understand the sub-specialty research, so it appears meaningless.
Some research is more meaningful than others, but rarely, I think is the research very
meaningful to people (including academics) outside of that field. Often even scholars
in the field ignore it with indifference and even scorn. (In philosophy, especially because it is so divided and contentious)
Some research is very repetitive and so derivative that the meaning is obvious but uninteresting.
If you are driven to write or need to publish, then write, regardless of its meaningfulness.

[Bede the Vulnerable]

I used to fret about this a lot.  But I can't really imagine that my alternatives to a T & R life would have been any MORE meaningful.  I'm not in a cancer-curing field.  Nor would I have made a great humanitarian aid worker.  So I probably would have gone into business or law--the latter of which I actually gave a shot.  Talk about not meaningful work!

I really like to research; love to write; and love to teach.  And since, at my R1, I could only keep my teaching job if I did the research, I deal with those (increasingly rare) times when I think that what I'm doing doesn't mean anything.  At least my research results (on underwater basket weaving) aren't weaponizable; I'm not actively HURTING anyone with my books.