How Interdisciplinary Will We Get in the New Year? (Part I)
December 22nd 2006 08:13
Category: No Category
While I'm far from happy with the way interdisciplinary approaches are still seen as unusual contributions to academia, it's nice to know there is discourse on the subject. I predict in the future you'll have the option to create your own designer degree, but while I'm waiting for the masses to slowly come around to the 'radical' idea that everybody graduates with an inimitable specialisation and should be allowed to give it their own name, I'm relieved that the people at U Toronto are organising a forum for the discussion of interdisciplinary approaches to tertiary education, with a focus on 'Comparative Literature.'
'Navigating Interdisciplinarity, Cultivating New Spaces of Comparison'
Date: March 16th-17, 2007
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Keynote Speaker: Haun Saussy, Professor of Comparative Literature at
Yale University
Recently, the field of Comparative Literature has been experiencing a period of self-reflection. ‘Trans, Pan, Intra: Cultures in Contact’ is the title for the American Comparative Literature Association’s 2007 conference. Comparative Literature in the Age of Globalism is the title of the most recent publication of scholarly critiques of a discipline dedicated to methods of comparison. As a contribution to the current discussion of global intellectual exchange, the Northrop Frye Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto is requesting papers which engage questions of interdisciplinary approaches to literature and culture.
The Centre’s 18th annual international colloquium will focus on the ways approaches and methodologies from the Humanities, the Social and the Natural Sciences can be brought to bear on the study of literature or culture, thus redefining its object and scope. Papers may address the following questions directly or may use literary critique to
reflect on one or more of the given issues:
What new methods of critical analysis are developed when two distinct disciplinary approaches are combined?
What can be gained by uniting normally separate fields of study? How does one decide which points of disciplinary intersection will yield the richest, most creative results?
What are the dangers of too much interdisciplinarity? At what point do comparative projects attempt to pull in so many theories, fields, languages, or literatures that they sacrifice intellectual focus or cohesion?
How have discipline-specific terminologies been applied to other, usually unrelated fields of study?
What discipline-specific methodologies (scientific, mathematical, linguistic, economic, philosophical, legal, etc.) have been borrowed from one field and applied to another to reach new analytical conclusions?
Are there rules for interdisciplinary approaches? What should the guidelines and basic requirements be to ensure that projects which draw upon multiple disciplines do so in an academically rigorous manner?
Does ‘Comparative Literature’ need to involve literature at all? Can pieces of music, paintings, films, etc. serve as ‘texts’? Does replacing a language requirement with ‘fluency’ in another discipline bring about a crisis that has the potential to redefine Comparative Literature?
If decentralisation, decolonisation, and globalisation have brought about a change in the Eurocentric territorialisation of knowledge, does Comparative Literature need to renegotiate a space for itself?
Would sedentarization betray and compromise Comparative Literature? Are ‘disciplinary’ nomadism and sedentarization false alternatives?
Comparative Literature students are often told that they need a ’dominant’ literature in their work that would strengthen their application for a position in a specialized department. Does this practical concern undermine the philosophy of this field or subordinate Comparative Literature in relation to other disciplines?
Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent to Ronald Ng via email by January 20th 2006: ronald.ng@utoronto.ca
Graduate students from various disciplines are encouraged to apply. Please observe the following procedures to enable blind peer review:
1) attach a short biographical note on a separate page, 2) do not include your name on the same page as your abstract, and 3) type ’abstract’ in the subject line of your email. Also, please indicate at the end of your abstract if you will require any special resources for
your presentation.
*
What do you think of this CFP (call for papers)? I'm planning to analyse it in my next post.
If anyone lives around the Toronto area or can get to the conference, lucky you - this sounds like it could get quite interesting. (I'm guessing that you can find details on how to register at the University of Toronto website.)
If you're interested in joining a CFP list (regarding humanities-based conferences, hard copy / online journals and other publications - I like the insight my CFP list gives me into the initial stages of many an interesting project/event), click here.
From the UT splash page (address below)
'Navigating Interdisciplinarity, Cultivating New Spaces of Comparison'
Date: March 16th-17, 2007
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Keynote Speaker: Haun Saussy, Professor of Comparative Literature at
Yale University
Recently, the field of Comparative Literature has been experiencing a period of self-reflection. ‘Trans, Pan, Intra: Cultures in Contact’ is the title for the American Comparative Literature Association’s 2007 conference. Comparative Literature in the Age of Globalism is the title of the most recent publication of scholarly critiques of a discipline dedicated to methods of comparison. As a contribution to the current discussion of global intellectual exchange, the Northrop Frye Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto is requesting papers which engage questions of interdisciplinary approaches to literature and culture.
The Centre’s 18th annual international colloquium will focus on the ways approaches and methodologies from the Humanities, the Social and the Natural Sciences can be brought to bear on the study of literature or culture, thus redefining its object and scope. Papers may address the following questions directly or may use literary critique to
reflect on one or more of the given issues:
What new methods of critical analysis are developed when two distinct disciplinary approaches are combined?
What can be gained by uniting normally separate fields of study? How does one decide which points of disciplinary intersection will yield the richest, most creative results?
What are the dangers of too much interdisciplinarity? At what point do comparative projects attempt to pull in so many theories, fields, languages, or literatures that they sacrifice intellectual focus or cohesion?
How have discipline-specific terminologies been applied to other, usually unrelated fields of study?
What discipline-specific methodologies (scientific, mathematical, linguistic, economic, philosophical, legal, etc.) have been borrowed from one field and applied to another to reach new analytical conclusions?
Are there rules for interdisciplinary approaches? What should the guidelines and basic requirements be to ensure that projects which draw upon multiple disciplines do so in an academically rigorous manner?
Does ‘Comparative Literature’ need to involve literature at all? Can pieces of music, paintings, films, etc. serve as ‘texts’? Does replacing a language requirement with ‘fluency’ in another discipline bring about a crisis that has the potential to redefine Comparative Literature?
If decentralisation, decolonisation, and globalisation have brought about a change in the Eurocentric territorialisation of knowledge, does Comparative Literature need to renegotiate a space for itself?
Would sedentarization betray and compromise Comparative Literature? Are ‘disciplinary’ nomadism and sedentarization false alternatives?
Comparative Literature students are often told that they need a ’dominant’ literature in their work that would strengthen their application for a position in a specialized department. Does this practical concern undermine the philosophy of this field or subordinate Comparative Literature in relation to other disciplines?
Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent to Ronald Ng via email by January 20th 2006: ronald.ng@utoronto.ca
Graduate students from various disciplines are encouraged to apply. Please observe the following procedures to enable blind peer review:
1) attach a short biographical note on a separate page, 2) do not include your name on the same page as your abstract, and 3) type ’abstract’ in the subject line of your email. Also, please indicate at the end of your abstract if you will require any special resources for
your presentation.
*
What do you think of this CFP (call for papers)? I'm planning to analyse it in my next post.
If anyone lives around the Toronto area or can get to the conference, lucky you - this sounds like it could get quite interesting. (I'm guessing that you can find details on how to register at the University of Toronto website.)
If you're interested in joining a CFP list (regarding humanities-based conferences, hard copy / online journals and other publications - I like the insight my CFP list gives me into the initial stages of many an interesting project/event), click here.
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Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Comment by postmoderncritic
Postmodern Critic
Relativity Watch
Padsoc
There's a philosophy CFP list out there, somewhere - are you interested?
I refuse to go back to uni until I can create my own disciplines and subject areas.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog