If Research Agenda Were Honest

Aspiring scholars are often asked: What is your research agenda? In my field of intellectual property law, for example, the proper response may be that my research interests, informed by my education and experience, are in patent and litigation. In particular, my next three research projects may be along the lines of: (1) efficiencies and trade-offs between ex ante patent regulation and ex post litigation, (2) nexus among patent, litigation reform, and separation of powers, and (3) litigation’s role in the U.S. innovation economy. While these research areas in and of themselves appear terribly interesting (at least on paper), the research agenda, needless to say, comes with the usual implied caveat that it may very well change—or perhaps become more refined—in light of the unearthed research, or potential future changes in law, either by legislation or by courts. Indeed, if Sisyphus were a scholar, his field would be patent law.But if my research agenda were honest, my response would unapologetically be that I have no research agenda and that I, like Toni Morrison and possibly many others, mostly write about what I want to read but have yet been written. As one’s own ideas, especially on perspective and whole view, change as she gains experience, her writings after all become just little fragments of her fleece left upon the hedges of life