Valences of Interdisciplinarity:
Theory, Practice, Pedagogy

About the Book

The modern university can trace its roots to Kant's call for enlightened self-determination, with education aiming to produce an informed and responsible body of citizens. As the university evolved, specialized areas of investigation emerged, enabling ever more precise research and increasingly nuanced arguments. In recent decades, however, challenges to the hegemony of disciplines have arisen, partly in response to a perceived need for the university to focus greater energy on its public vocation—teaching and the dissemination of knowledge.

Valences of Interdisciplinarity presents essays by an international array of scholars committed to enhancing our understanding of the theoretical underpinnings and the practical realities of interdisciplinary teaching and research. What is, and what should be, motivating our reflections on (and practice of) approaches that transcend the conventional boundaries of discipline? And in adopting such transdisciplinary approaches, how do we safeguard critical methods and academic rigour? Reflecting on the obstacles they have encountered both as thinkers and as educators, the authors map out innovative new directions for the interdisciplinary project. Together, the essays promise to set the standards of the debate about interdisciplinarity for years to come.

About the Editor

Raphael Foshay is the program director of the Master of Arts in Integrated Studies program at Athabasca University. His research interests include literary and cultural theory and continental philosophy.

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Copyright: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. It may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that the original author is credited.

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DownloadFront Matter

DownloadTable of Contents

DownloadAcknowledgements

DownloadIntroduction: Interdisciplinarity, for What?
Raphael Foshay

Part I     Theory

Download1. The Menace of Consilience: Keeping the Disciplines Unreconciled
Martin Jay

Download2. The Telos of the Good Life: Reflections on Interdisciplinarity and Models of Knowledge
Ian Angus

Download3. Interdisciplinary Models and Dialectical Integration: A Proposed Model of Integrated Interdisciplinarity
Wendell Kisner

Download4. Globalization and Higher Education: Working Toward Cognitive Justice
Diana Brydon

Download5. The Law of Non-contradiction: Dialectic and the Possibility of Non-propositional Knowledge
Raphael Foshay

Download6. Interdisciplinarity, Humanities, and the Terministic Screens of Definition
Julie Thompson Klein

Download7. Integrating Interdisciplinary Studies Across the Humanities and Social Sciences
Rick Szostak

Part II     Practice

Download8. Ecological Thinking as Interdisciplinary Practice: Situation, Silence, and Skepticism
Lorraine Code

Download9. Michael Haneke: The Spectatorship of Self-RefleXivity and the Virtual Gaze in Benny’s Video and Caché
jan jagodzinski

Download10. Transdisciplinarity and Journal Publishing
Gary Genosko

Download11. Gender, Women’s Rights, and Religion: An Interdisciplinary Case Study
Morny Joy

Download12. Literacy Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies: Reflections on History and Theory
Harvey J. Graff

Part III     Pedagogy

Download13. Teaching and Enjoyment: A Lacanian Encounter with the Master Signifier
Paul Nonnekes

Download14. “One code to rule them all . . .”
Suzanne de Castell

Download15. Decolonizing Teaching and Learning Through Embodied Learning: Toward an Integrated Approach
Roxana Ng

Download16. From Integrated to Interstitial Studies
Derek Briton

DownloadList of Contributors