Comments on: identity crisis: the curse/joy of being interdisciplinary and the future of academia

By: Nidhogg

Nidhogg — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 06:11:33 +0000

The best place for downloading music with 1000 indispensables logiciels.

By: Lester Spence

Lester Spence — Sun, 15 May 2005 13:51:03 +0000

This is the absolute wrong approach. The question isn’t WHO is the next big thinker. It isn’t even whether the route is interdisciplinary or not.

The question is WHAT ARE THE NEXT BIG QUESTIONS?

We seem to be forgetting that the questions and the landscape we stake out through those questions are what drives the academy. (Well of course there is more than that, but you know what I mean.)

Once that question is answered, we’ll know WHO the thinkers are (because they’ll either ask the questions, or answer the questions we’re interested in), and we’ll know whether interdisciplinary or intradisciplinary routes are best.

By: Shannon Clark

Shannon Clark — Fri, 13 May 2005 00:43:44 +0000

Danah,

I’m outside of academia but have just finished running MeshForum (http://www.meshforum.org) a conference on Networks where we made a lot of effort to bring together a truly wide range of academics, business people and government experts around multiple aspects of and views on Networks.

From this a few thoughts – I would argue that the growing study of and understanding of networks which has blossomed in the past 5 years represents a truly interdisciplinary and important development. Social scientists, physicists, economists, and dozens of other fields finding a common language and means of collaborating together to address very real and important problems.

At MeshForum we had a number of people who’s careers illustate real work across disciplines:

- Dr. Anna Nagurney of U. Mass – Amherst. Dr. Nagurney is an economist but has professorships in both the school of management and the school of engineering. She has published and/or edited 8 books on Networks – including works specifically on transportation networks and Network Economics. Her talk at MeshForum brought together work from operational engineering, transportation, economics, and many other fields.

- Dr. Noshir Contracter, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Contractor is in the school of communications, but his research interests and works (over 250 papers and books) have been with researchers from many other fields.

- Dr. Eivind Almaas, University of Notre Dame. Dr. Almaas is a physicist but his research at Notre Dame in Dr. Albert-Lazlow Barabasi’s lab is on biological networks. Dr. Barabasi’s work (see his book Linked) includes studies of computer networks, social networks, and physical networks.

Just a few examples from speakers we had – our other speakers are also great examples.

My own interes (well one of them) is in studying economics through a lens of networks. To do this, I am learning as much as I can about networks in every context – social, physical, biological, technical etc. I expect to adapt techniques from many fields to address the issues I’m studying.

Hope this helps,

Shannon

By: Guitef

Guitef — Thu, 12 May 2005 21:25:34 +0000

Revue : Moyens de pression via Internet

Cueilli sur le Web : • Les moyens de pression Internet! (Sacco) • Les parents auront un droit de regard (Le Soleil) • Education, infrastructure top Ontario’s budget agenda (Globe and Mail) • ‘Interactive teaching’engages learners (eSchool News) • Hand …

By: paul moody

paul moody — Wed, 11 May 2005 17:31:58 +0000

I too have an interdisciplinary identity crisis – after nearly 25 years in software design, people still don’t get that design is not a single ‘science’ that can be pigoned-holed. it is interdisciplinary at its core. worse, i don’t even have a ‘mash-up’ degree like your MS MA. Your post reminded me that every job i’ve ever been offered was some ‘special case’, or at least ‘the first of its kind’ such as my current research position. oh! to be misunderstood.

By: jeremy hunsinger

jeremy hunsinger — Wed, 11 May 2005 05:09:11 +0000

but for wow…. the question is ‘how do we know it is ‘wow’?’ because, i think that the more that we learn, the less we see as wow-like. or maybe it is that the more ways of thinking one can use, the less likely they will see a new one, or perhaps see the merits of a new one. what are the questions that ‘wow’ answers would address?

By: metamanda>>weblog

metamanda>>weblog — Tue, 10 May 2005 21:27:54 +0000

being interdisciplinary

So, zephoria posted about interdisciplinarity and set me off thinking about what it means to be interdisciplinary, and what is a discipline anyway. Now, given what the topology of my mind is like lately, it takes just the slightest nudge in that direct…

By: meta

meta — Tue, 10 May 2005 20:06:25 +0000

Oh crap, this is an awesome post d. I’m trackbacking because I have too much for a comment.

Oh, it’s “hapa”, btw.

By: zephoria

zephoria — Tue, 10 May 2005 19:22:57 +0000

I want to be wowed because i want my understanding of the world to go through a major shift. But i definitely agree international is critical.

By: jeremy hunsinger

jeremy hunsinger — Tue, 10 May 2005 04:55:34 +0000

one issue that one might take up is this whole idea of the ‘next big thing’ and the wow factor. first, the major question is ‘why?’…. why do you want to be wowed? why do you think someone that has spent the better part of their lives in normalizing institutions will ‘wow’? how can you judge ‘wow’ before it is popular? and better before it is fully developed and tried against many audiences?

if i had to say what the next big thing is… i would say that it won’t really involve interdisciplinarity as much as internationalism. most of the big things are acts of cultural embeddedness being translated, appropriated, and popularized.

both the frankfurt school and the 1968 grops arose this way, addressing a different audience, and then launching onto the international stage.