a serendipitous collation of websites for programs in support of interdisciplinary programs and essays addressing interdisciplinarity. Suggestions for new additions will be gratefully considered
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Interdisciplines < http://www.interdisciplines.org/ > is a project aimed at enhancing interdisciplinary research and exchanges in the humanities, but this project has evolved to embrace many scientific concerns They sponsor conferences and seminars, each run by a specific team and sponsored by a different grant. Projects are selected by a scientific committee and supervised by Gloria Origgi. The overall project has been sponsored by the C.N.R.S., France.
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"Unfortunately, research universities are often archipelagos of intellectual pursuit rather than connected and integrated communities. Fragmentation has increased drastically during the last fifty years. At many universities, research faculty and under-graduate students do not expect to interact with each other, and both groups distinguish between teachers and researchers as though the two experiences were not inextricably linked. Even those students who encounter an introduction to research technique in one narrow field too often remain ignorant of how diverse fields overlap and intermingle."
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UNIVERSITY STUDIES
| University of Tennessee: University Studies Program was constituted in 1976 to support of collaborative and interdisciplinary faculty development. The Program seeks to support faculty Colloquies in whatever development process they regard as most appropriate to their needs. Outcomes typically involve collaboratively designed and taught interdisciplinary courses, conferences, invited speakers, campus forums, and preparation of interdisciplinary grants. University Studies Publications is a collection of essays and monographs that foster, advance, and exemplify interdisciplinary scholarship.
THE UNIVERSITY STUDIES argument for enhancing interdisciplinarity in the University Curriculum |
| The Association for Integrative Studies "serves as an organized voice and a national source of information on integrative and interdisciplinary approaches to the discovery, transmission and application of knowledge." Its mission includes articulating "the nature of integrative studies and to document their importance for higher education and for society;" enhancing "research and teaching in integrative studies by promoting the development of interdisciplinary theory, methodology and curricular design;" and to become "a broad-based professional home for committed interdisciplinarians." An array of relevant literature is reviewed at AIS-related publications. |
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THE
HYBRID VIGOR
INSTITUTE | Hybridvigor.net "is a work in progress that's designed to be a resource center and "tool shop" for interdisciplinary problem solving. It has two functions: (1) to expose researchers to new people, ideas and relevant knowledge outside their disciplinary boundaries; and (2) to provide them with the tools —— and, as our work develops over time, access to the metrics and methods —— by which to conduct their own boundary-crossing explorations and collaborations." |
| Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute is a private, nonprofit, multidisciplinary research and education center, founded in 1984. Since its founding SFI has devoted itself to creating a new kind of scientific research community, pursuing emerging science. Operating as a small, visiting institution, SFI seeks to catalyze new collaborative, multidisciplinary projects that break down the barriers between the traditional disciplines, to spread its ideas and methodologies to other individuals and encourage the practical applications of its results. |
| University of Georgia: Center for the Humanities and Arts offers a variety of supportive activities such as The CHA Research Fellowship Program, to facilitate release from teaching for faculty engaged in humanities research or artistic creation or performance. a Faculty Seminar Program, providing funds to faculty organizing interdisciplinary discussion groups on particular research topics, or CHA Distinguished Lecturer Program, bringing to campus distinguished scholars and artists, nominated by faculty and selected by the Advisory Board, whose appeal transcends disciplinary boundaries. |
| San Francisco State University: NEXA involves programs charged with maintaining a curriculum that demonstrates the historical, philosophical, and ethical interactions among humanities, arts, business, and the physical and social sciences. NEXA's general objective is to provide a point of convergence among diverse fields of knowledge, and to offer the student a form of liberal education that is both modern and substantial. |
| Virginia Tech's Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (CIS) encourages students to consider the aesthetic, ethical, political, scientific, and technical dimensions of human experience and culture and to recognize the commonality and diversity of human experience, beliefs, and practices. CIS emphasizes global and environmental interdependence and social responsibility as part of its effort to prepare students for a lifetime of cultural, social, environmental, and technological change. |
| University of North Carolina: Institute for the Arts and Humanities supports "an interdisciplinary community of teachers, scholars and artists, the Institute helps professors communicate the themes of the arts and humanities to students, alumni and other audiences within North Carolina's borders and beyond." |
| UC Berkeley provides an Interdisciplinary Studies Field Major (ISF) at UC-Berkeley to offer students the opportunity to develop individualized cross disciplinary majors utilizing courses from the social sciences, the humanities, and/or the professional schools and colleges. |
| UC Santa Barbara's Interdisciplinary Humanities Center was founded "out of the conviction that research and teaching in the Humanities are becoming perilously specialized. . . IHC regards its principal mission as encouraging interdisciplinary scholarship and instruction. It does this by supporting research projects, team-taught courses, lectures, seminars, and conferences. By hosting a wide array of interdisciplinary programs and activities. . . " |
| Georgetown University: provides a Communication, Culture, and Technology Program (Martin Irvine, Director) which includes the unique "Daedalus's Guide to the Architext: Navigating Webspace, Virtual Labyrinths, The Metaverse of Discourse |
| BIBLIOGRAPHY ON INTERDISCIPLINARITY "This bibliography was compiled by Dr. Bruce Janz, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Augustana University College, for the use of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in the Liberal Arts (CIRLA). It is intended for the free use of researchers and students . . . . There are hundreds of books on particular interdisciplinary research programs, or on combinations of particular disciplines. I have tried to limit this bibliography to books that reflect on the meta-question of doing interdisciplinary research or teaching." |
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SCIENCE and CULTURE resources maintained by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Colloquy on Evolution and Culture including links to resources maintained by the AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION, DISCOVERY CHANNEL, NEW SCIENTIST, PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY, HUMAN BEHAVIOR AND EVOLUTION SOCIETY, and others. |
| The SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES (STS) program "supports research and related activities that contribute to systematic understanding of the character and development of science and technology, including their cultural, intellectual, material and social dimensions. [snip] The program supports research on the nature and development of science and technology, both in the past and present, and on differences in the nature of theory and evidence in various fields of science and engineering. STS also supports research on the interactions among science, technology and society, including such topics as the construction of scientific and technological knowledge and institutions; the relations between science and other social institutions and groups; and processes of scientific and technological innovation and change. Proposals are welcome from various disciplinary perspectives, including history, philosophy, and the social sciences. Among their projects is Connecting and Collaborating: Issues for the Sciences a workshop on the impact of advanced communications technology. |
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| Essays, Articles |  |
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AAAS: SCIENCE and SOCIETY "In tribute to the 150th anniversary of American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science is publishing a weekly series of personal viewpoints on the theme of science and society . . . . Essayists will include prominent scientists plus a wide range of nonscientists, including artists, politicians, religious leaders, science fiction writers and philosophers. With a new essay each week through the end of the year, the series will build into a fascinating portrait of how the sciences are perceived today."
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articles and opinion from
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- Interdisciplinary Collaborations Are A Scientific And Social Imperative by Robert L. Kahn and Denis J. Prager. "The myth of the solitary scientist in search of truth is a romantic notion whose continued existence serves as a major barrier to progress . . . And the idea that all scientific progress takes place within the boundaries of current disciplines is historically invalid and currently counterproductive. (Vol:8, #14, p.12, July 11, 1994)
- Creative Arts and Science Form the Pillars of Learning by Dennis W. Creedon. "A world without art also would be a world without science. . . . Both art and science require inspiration to question, explore, and risk failure. Both science and art depend on the heuristic nature of investigations that lead to discovery. Thus, from an artistic mind, today's sciences were born." (Volume 12, #17, August 31, 1998)
- "Multidisciplinary Centers Take Up Challenges" by Peter Gwynne. "Multidisciplinary research in the life sciences "is indeed a general trend," agrees James Edwards, deputy assistant director of biological sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF). The scientific community "is beginning to realize that many of the big, intractable problems we face require a multidisciplinary approach." (Volume 13, #7 March 29, 1999)
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Being Transdisciplinary, Richard Wilk's essay was contributed by Benita J. Howell, Professor of Anthropology and member of the Council for Intellectual and Cultural Expression at the University of Tennessee.
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Dr. Wilk was recently visiting professor in the Energy and Resources Group (ERG) at UC Berkeley (an interdisciplinary program including a huge range of scholars from nuclear physicists to industrial ecologists and anthropologists) – the experience gave him cause to examine the language, assumptions, and potential of transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarship
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 ANNUAL UNIVERSITY STUDIES SCHOLARS LECTURE FOR 1999 |
ANNUAL UNIVERSITY STUDIES SCHOLARS LECTURE FOR 1999: "INTERDISCIPLINARY THINKING, DISCIPLINARY QUESTIONS: WHY INTERDISCIPLINARITY IS HARDER THAN IT LOOKS by ANNE MAYHEW
". . . . Interdisciplinarity or "transdisciplinarity" is "in," though perhaps "in" in the same manner as healthy living. Both are easier to intend than to do. And what I want to talk about tonight are some reasons why trans or interdisciplinarity is hard, and why hard for intellectual reasons. We all know about the bureaucratic and administrative barriers to interdisciplinarity; my focus will be on intellectual barriers. . . ."
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The SCIENCE CITATION INDEX, along with CURRENT CONTENTS, invaluable bibliographic tools, were established by Eugene Garfield shortly after receiving his doctorate in structural linguistics in 1961. The index was from the outset designed to be the "ultimate cross-disciplinary" tool and Garfield has confessed to endless pleasure derived from the connections he has seen scholars make with its help. Of his voluminous output of essays accompanying Current Contents, Garfield has dozens that insightfully highlight interdisciplinary themes. Visit Garfield's papers at his website, http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/
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