Not for all the Tea in China

I've spent the day getting my teeth cleaned and getting lubed and tuned and I think I've lost the fine art of researching.

I set up my little work area in the apartment, now that I've decided to commit to going on the job market (I was afraid I wouldn't have the money and am still afraid I won't, to be honest), and sat down to do some library research for my third chapter...and I can't figure out where to begin. I'm so not about close reading without serious historical and theoretical underpinnings, so really need to bulk up some of my feminist theory (gack, but it has to be done for the sake of footnoting). I've been looking under the search words "silence" and "unspeakable" and trying to get some footing for opening up a conversation about the protagonist in Gayl Jones' novel and her refusal to allow her body to speak through medical examination (serves as a nice bridge to my 2nd chapter, where Adelaide refuses medical exams unless she is dying). AND I need to tie this on to Kara Walker's piece "Cut," which is an autobio representation. You can't see her facial features in this piece only (in others, you can see racial physiognamy being tinkered with, with the intention of implicating the spectator--including herself) and here she refuses to be read. She is also cutting her own wrists in this piece and it looks a lot like the language scrolls used in political cartoons in the 18th and 19th centuries. So, her blood is "speaking" and refusing to speak, as is her body, and both are grossly overdetermined (she both cuts to illucidate and resist this), so.... Yeah. I'm not sure how much I need to rely or at least include so much outside work, but I do want to use Foucault here as well as Kristeva and maybe some bell hooks. Not sure. My dissertation director likes that I don't rely too heavily on outside voices, but the reason I can do this successfully is because I've done the reading and can implicitly work it in. But I need footnotes and I need to at times explicitly demonstrate what I've read and taken into consideration so..... I'm also a bit queasy at the idea that if I bring up the abject and unspeakability that I will have to, by default and for the sake of footnoting/demonstrating that I've done it, bring up racial melancholia. It's important to know, use, etc but goddamn I hate talking about it because then readers begin to automatically assume that I consider melancholia as diacritical to discussions of race and bodies blah blah blah.

Good news is this is my last chapter before I submit the dissertation for revision and formatting. I'm shooting to submit this chapter by the end of October and then start working on revising at least one seminar paper I wrote while in coursework for publication. I also want to revise my Delia's Doctors chapter to send it out before the Spring term, when I have a research fellowship at the Center for Ideas and Society. My diss director informed me that I should expect a publication out of the process. This is getting fun!!!