Download or read book Undisciplining Knowledge written by Harvey J. Graff and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2015-08-01 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first critical history of interdisciplinary efforts and movements in the modern university. Interdisciplinarity—or the interrelationships among distinct fields, disciplines, or branches of knowledge in pursuit of new answers to pressing problems—is one of the most contested topics in higher education today. Some see it as a way to break down the silos of academic departments and foster creative interchange, while others view it as a destructive force that will diminish academic quality and destroy the university as we know it. In Undisciplining Knowledge, acclaimed scholar Harvey J. Graff presents readers with the first comparative and critical history of interdisciplinary initiatives in the modern university. Arranged chronologically, the book tells the engaging story of how various academic fields both embraced and fought off efforts to share knowledge with other scholars. It is a story of myths, exaggerations, and misunderstandings, on all sides. Touching on a wide variety of disciplines—including genetic biology, sociology, the humanities, communications, social relations, operations research, cognitive science, materials science, nanotechnology, cultural studies, literacy studies, and biosciences—the book examines the ideals, theories, and practices of interdisciplinarity through comparative case studies. Graff interweaves this narrative with a social, institutional, and intellectual history of interdisciplinary efforts over the 140 years of the modern university, focusing on both its implementation and evolution while exploring substantial differences in definitions, goals, institutional locations, and modes of organization across different areas of focus. Scholars across the disciplines, specialists in higher education, administrators, and interested readers will find the book’s multiple perspectives and practical advice on building and operating—and avoiding fallacies and errors—in interdisciplinary research and education invaluable.

Download or read book Interdisciplinary Conversations written by Myra Strober and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conversations across academic disciplines are the future. This work delves into the dynamics, rewards, and challenges of such conversations.

Download or read book Introduction to Interdisciplinary Studies written by Allen F. Repko and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2016-10-12 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Second Edition provides a comprehensive introduction to interdisciplinary studies with an approach that is succinct, conceptual, and practical. Completely updated to reflect advances in the literature on research, learning, and assessment, the book describes the role of both disciplines and interdisciplinarity within the academy, and how these have evolved. Authors Allen F. Repko, Rick Szostak, and Michelle Phillips Buchberger effectively show students how to think like interdisciplinarians in order to facilitate their working with topics, complex problems, or themes that span multiple disciplines.

Download or read book Sustaining Interdisciplinary Collaboration written by Regina Bendix and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At once a slogan and a vision for future scholarship, interdisciplinarity promises to break through barriers to address today's complex challenges. Yet even high-stakes projects often falter, undone by poor communication, strong feelings, bureaucratic frameworks, and contradictory incentives. This new book shows newcomers and veteran researchers how to craft associations that will lead to rich mutual learning under inevitably tricky conditions. Strikingly candid and always grounded, the authors draw a wealth of profound, practical lessons from an in-depth case study of a multiyear funded project on cultural property. Examining the social dynamics of collaboration, they show readers how to anticipate sources of conflict, nurture trust, and jump-start thinking across disciplines. Researchers and institutions alike will learn to plan for each phase of a project life cycle, capturing insights and shepherding involvement along the way.

Download or read book Being an Interdisciplinary Academic written by Catherine Lyall and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-06-29 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book highlights the importance of interdisciplinarity in the academic landscape, and examines how it is understood in the context of the modern university. While interdisciplinarity is encouraged by research funders, academics themselves receive mixed messages about how, when and whether to follow this route. Building upon a series of career history interviews with established interdisciplinary researchers, the author reveals fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of interdisciplinary knowledge, how this is shared, and the skills these researchers bring. The book addresses these issues on both a personal and systemic level, identifying how a resilient researcher can craft their own research trajectory to view interdisciplinarity as a truly embedded approach.

Download or read book The Interdisciplinary Science of Consumption written by Stephanie D. Preston and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-08 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars from psychology, neuroscience, economics, animal behavior, and evolution describe the latest research on the causes and consequences of overconsumption. Our drive to consume—our desire for food, clothing, smart phones, and megahomes—evolved from our ancestors' drive to survive. But the psychological and neural processes that originally evolved to guide mammals toward resources that are necessary but scarce may mislead us in modern conditions of material abundance. Such phenomena as obesity, financial bubbles, hoarding, and shopping sprees suggest a mismatch between our instinct to consume and our current environment. This volume brings together research from psychology, neuroscience, economics, marketing, animal behavior, and evolution to explore the causes and consequences of consumption. Contributors consider such topics as how animal food-storing informs human consumption; the downside of evolved “fast and frugal” rules for eating; how future discounting and the draw toward immediate rewards influence food consumption, addiction, and our ability to save; overconsumption as social display; and the policy implications of consumption science. Taken together, the chapters make the case for an emerging interdisciplinary science of consumption that reflects commonalities across species, domains, and fields of inquiry. By carefully comparing mechanisms that underlie seemingly disparate outcomes, we can achieve a unified understanding of consumption that could benefit both science and society.

Download or read book Interdisciplinarity written by Julie Thompson Klein and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, Julie Klein provides the first comprehensive study of the modern concept of interdisciplinarity, supplementing her discussion with the most complete bibliography yet compiled on the subject. In this volume, Julie Klein provides the first comprehensive study of the modern concept of interdisciplinarity, supplementing her discussion with the most complete bibliography yet compiled on the subject. Spanning the social sciences, natural sciences, humanities, and professions, her study is a synthesis of existing scholarship on interdisciplinary research, education and health care. Klein argues that any interdisciplinary activity embodies a complex network of historical, social, psychological, political, economic, philosophical, and intellectual factors. Whether the context is a short-ranged instrumentality or a long-range reconceptualization of the way we know and learn, the concept of interdisciplinarity is an important means of solving problems and answering questions that cannot be satisfactorily addressed using singular methods or approaches.

Download or read book Interdisciplinary Research written by Allen F. Repko and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2008-05-29 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction to Interdisciplinary Research offers comprehensive treatment of the interdisciplinary research process commonly used by interdisciplinarians. The concise and guided resource on the most commonly accepted interdisciplinary studies principles as applied to the research process covers topics such as: deciding how to choose disciplines relevant to the problem or topi; dealing with disciplinary and ideological bias; making explicit the rationale for taking an interdisciplinary approach, and choosing research methods appropriate to the problem or topic.

Download or read book Interdisciplinary Knowledge Organization written by Rick Szostak and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-03-24 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book proposes a novel approach to classification, discusses its myriad advantages, and outlines how such an approach to classification can best be pursued. It encourages a collaborative effort toward the detailed development of such a classification. This book is motivated by the increased importance of interdisciplinary scholarship in the academy, and the widely perceived shortcomings of existing knowledge organization schemes in serving interdisciplinary scholarship. It is designed for scholars of classification research, knowledge organization, the digital environment, and interdisciplinarity itself. The approach recommended blends a general classification with domain-specific classification practices. The book reaches a set of very strong conclusions: -Existing classification systems serve interdisciplinary research and teaching poorly. -A novel approach to classification, grounded in the phenomena studied rather than disciplines, would serve interdisciplinary scholarship much better. It would also have advantages for disciplinary scholarship. The productivity of scholarship would thus be increased. -This novel approach is entirely feasible. Various concerns that might be raised can each be addressed. The broad outlines of what a new classification would look like are developed. -This new approach might serve as a complement to or a substitute for existing classification systems. -Domain analysis can and should be employed in the pursuit of a general classification. This will be particularly important with respect to interdisciplinary domains. -Though the impetus for this novel approach comes from interdisciplinarity, it is also better suited to the needs of the Semantic Web, and a digital environment more generally. Though the primary focus of the book is on classification systems, most chapters also address how the analysis could be extended to thesauri and ontologies. The possibility of a universal thesaurus is explored. The classification proposed has many of the advantages sought in ontologies for the Semantic Web. The book is therefore of interest to scholars working in these areas as well.

Download or read book Interdisciplinarity in the Making written by Nancy J. Nersessian and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-11-22 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cognitive ethnography of how bioengineering scientists create innovative modeling methods. In this first full-scale, long-term cognitive ethnography by a philosopher of science, Nancy J. Nersessian offers an account of how scientists at the interdisciplinary frontiers of bioengineering create novel problem-solving methods. Bioengineering scientists model complex dynamical biological systems using concepts, methods, materials, and other resources drawn primarily from engineering. They aim to understand these systems sufficiently to control or intervene in them. What Nersessian examines here is how cutting-edge bioengineering scientists integrate the cognitive, social, material, and cultural dimensions of practice. Her findings and conclusions have broad implications for researchers in philosophy, science studies, cognitive science, and interdisciplinary studies, as well as scientists, educators, policy makers, and funding agencies. In studying the epistemic practices of scientists, Nersessian pushes the boundaries of the philosophy of science and cognitive science into areas not ventured before. She recounts a decades-long, wide-ranging, and richly detailed investigation of the innovative interdisciplinary modeling practices of bioengineering researchers in four university laboratories. She argues and demonstrates that the methods of cognitive ethnography and qualitative data analysis, placed in the framework of distributed cognition, provide the tools for a philosophical analysis of how scientific discoveries arise from complex systems in which the cognitive, social, material, and cultural dimensions of problem-solving are integrated into the epistemic practices of scientists. Specifically, she looks at how interdisciplinary environments shape problem-solving. Although Nersessian’s case material is drawn from the bioengineering sciences, her analytic framework and methodological approach are directly applicable to scientific research in a broader, more general sense, as well.

Download or read book In Defense of Disciplines written by Jerry A. Jacobs and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-02-05 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Calls for closer connections among disciplines can be heard throughout the world of scholarly research, from major universities to the National Institutes of Health. In Defense of Disciplines presents a fresh and daring analysis of the argument surrounding interdisciplinarity. Challenging the belief that blurring the boundaries between traditional academic fields promotes more integrated research and effective teaching, Jerry Jacobs contends that the promise of interdisciplinarity is illusory and that critiques of established disciplines are often overstated and misplaced. Drawing on diverse sources of data, Jacobs offers a new theory of liberal arts disciplines such as biology, economics, and history that identifies the organizational sources of their dynamism and breadth. Illustrating his thesis with a wide range of case studies including the diffusion of ideas between fields, the creation of interdisciplinary scholarly journals, and the rise of new fields that spin off from existing ones, Jacobs turns many of the criticisms of disciplines on their heads to mount a powerful defense of the enduring value of liberal arts disciplines. This will become one of the anchors of the case against interdisciplinarity for years to come.

Download or read book An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity written by Andy Blunden and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical review of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, the psychology originating from Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934). Tracing its roots in Goethe, Hegel and Marx, the author builds a concept of activity transcending the division between individual and social domains in human sciences.

Download or read book Being Interdisciplinary written by Alan Wilson and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Being Interdisciplinary, Alan Wilson draws on five decades as a leading figure in urban science to set out a systems approach to interdisciplinarity for those conducting research in this and other fields. He argues that most research is interdisciplinary at base, and that a systems perspective is particularly appropriate for collaboration because it fosters an outlook that sees beyond disciplines. There is a more subtle thread, too. A systems approach enables researchers to identify the game-changers of the past as a basis for thinking outside convention, for learning how to do something new and how to be ambitious, in a nutshell how to be creative. Ultimately, the ideas presented address how to do research. Building on this systems focus, the book first establishes the basics of interdisciplinarity. Then, by drawing on the author’s experience of doing interdisciplinary research, and working from his personal toolkit, it offers general principles and a framework from which researchers can build their own interdisciplinary toolkit, with elements ranging from explorations of game-changers in research to superconcepts. In the last section, the book tackles questions of managing and organising research from individual to institutional scales. Alan Wilson deploys his wide experience – researcher in urban science, university professor and vice-chancellor, civil servant and institute director – to build the narrative. While his experience in urban science provides the illustrations, the principles apply across many research fields.

Download or read book Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Failures written by Dena Fam and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-01 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike other volumes in the current literature, this book provides insight for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary researchers and practitioners on what doesn’t work. Documenting detailed case studies of project failure matters, not only as an illustration of experienced challenges but also as projects do not always follow step-by-step protocols of preconceived and theorised processes. Bookended by a framing introduction by the editors and a conclusion written by Julie Thompson Klein, each chapter ends with a reflexive section that synthesizes lessons learned and key take-away points for the reader. Drawing on a wide range of international case studies and with a strong environmental thread throughout, the book reveals a range of failure scenarios for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects, including: • Projects that did not get off the ground; • Projects that did not have the correct personnel for specified objectives; • Projects that did not reach their original objectives but met other objectives; • Projects that failed to anticipate important differences among collaborators. Illustrating causal links in real life projects, this volume will be of significant relevance to scholars and practitioners looking to overcome the challenges of conducting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.

Download or read book Investigating Interdisciplinary Collaboration written by Scott Frickel and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-25 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interdisciplinarity has become a buzzword in academia, as research universities funnel their financial resources toward collaborations between faculty in different disciplines. In theory, interdisciplinary collaboration breaks down artificial divisions between different departments, allowing more innovative and sophisticated research to flourish. But does it actually work this way in practice? Investigating Interdisciplinary Collaboration puts the common beliefs about such research to the test, using empirical data gathered by scholars from the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. The book’s contributors critically interrogate the assumptions underlying the fervor for interdisciplinarity. Their attentive scholarship reveals how, for all its potential benefits, interdisciplinary collaboration is neither immune to academia’s status hierarchies, nor a simple antidote to the alleged shortcomings of disciplinary study. Chapter 10 is available Open Access here (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK395883)

Download or read book An Introduction to Interdisciplinary Toxicology written by Carey N. Pope and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2020-02-21 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Introduction to Interdisciplinary Toxicology: From Molecules to Man integrates the various aspects of toxicology, from "simple” molecular systems, to complex human communities, with expertise from a spectrum of interacting disciplines. Chapters are written by specialists within a given subject, such as a chemical engineer, nutritional scientist, or a microbiologist, so subjects are clearly explained and discussed within the toxicology context. Many chapters are comparative across species so that students in ecotoxicology learn mammalian toxicology and vice versa. Specific citations, further reading, study questions, and other learning features are also included. The book allows students to concurrently learn concepts in both biomedical and environmental toxicology fields, thus better equipping them for the many career opportunities toxicology provides. This book will also be useful to those wishing to reference how disciplines interact within the broad field of toxicology.

Download or read book Interdisciplinary Teaching Through Outdoor Education written by Camille J. Bunting and published by Human Kinetics. This book was released on 2006 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This practical text offers simple activities and lesson plans for young people in a variety of school and community settings. The author examines why outdoor education is important and includes a step-by-step guide for planning field trips through to a complete outdoor education programme.