Background Needed for Research in Algebra

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I was wondering how much background knowledge is needed to do research in some subfield of algebra. I am currently working on an application for a summer research program, and I need to choose a subfield of mathematics to research, but I'm not too sure whether research in algebra would be possible with only a read of Dummit and Foote and Artin's text on Algebra. Also, is linear algebra still a topic that is currently being researched? And finally, is ring theory something I could possibly handle with only background knowledge from the two texts listed above?