Thursday, January 24, 2013

The Problem with Scholarship

The more I entrench myself in the world of academia, the harder I find it to pick topics for my research papers. Not for lack of ideas, but simply an over abundance of ideas.

For my Mormon Women's History class, I thought about finally doing something with my research on sisters missionaries since my old boss is retiring and I don't think that year and a half blood, sweat, and tears of joy that went into researching will every culminate into any sort of publication. I was thinking of examining the dress and grooming standards for sisters; why they were formed, what they used to be, what they are now, and why they've changed. Super compelling right? ;0)

But then I came across the diary of this woman at work named Patty Bartlett Sessions. She was a midwife in the early days of the church, delivering over 2,000 babies by the time she died. I had never heard of her before; this essential woman in Church history and I have never heard of her. So, I wanted to figure out why her story isn't really told OR look at midwife practices amongst early women in the church while comparing it to the trend among Mormon women bloggers now to have home births. Are there correlations? Does it have to do with belief?

But I just decided to continue research the project I did last semester for my Women in Art class on LDS images of Eve. I'll get to flesh out the topic a little bit more than I did in my 7 minute presentation last semester. Maybe even talk about non-LDS images of Eve a bit. How Mormon women artists portray Eve versus how Mormon men portray Eve. All around it should be a good time. My professor said this was the topic she was the most excited about. It's nice to bring art into the mix as well.

For American Art, I'm researching John Hafen and why a French academy trained artist came back to the States to paint landscapes. Where were the people!?


I love researching. I love learning. I love exploring documents. I love tracing articles and their citations all the way back to primary sources. I love the moment when you find that obscure article that you just know will prove your point. I love finding out the real story. I just love it all.

School is for me.





Also, I need to figure out the words to this song so I can stop walking around just chanting the words "RED.......BLACK!" Makes me wanna go fight in a French revolution... and stuff.

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