Post Graduate Teaching Award in Interdisciplinary Pedagogy Blog

Fraser Logan

PGA Award in Interdisciplinary Pedagogy Reflective Blog

REFLECTIVE BLOG

1. A Rendezvous of Questions

In the first month we read Klein’s “Typologies of Interdisciplinarity.” The paper categorises the (many) different “-disciplinarities,” covering everything from “encyclopaedic interdisciplinarity” to “hybridizations” to “unifying interdisciplinarity” to “interstitial cross-disciplines” to “‘genuinely interdisciplinary’ work” to “transdisciplinarity.”

I have a number of reflections, most of them critical.

As a general point, I think terminology is always frustrating at the beginning, when we are “outside” a debate. It seems needlessly dense. But once we learn or, more cynically, are contaminated by the terminology, we can leverage it to make more exacting arguments. I think terminology is important in certain contexts, for instance when communicating with experts, and unhelpful in other contexts, for instance when trying to convince non-specialists of the value of these “-disciplinarities.”

Consider, for instance, the table of contrasting types of interdisciplinarity [ID] on page 23: “auxiliary disciplinary relations” is contrasted with “supplementary disciplinary relations”; “bridge building” is contrasted with “restructuring”; and “borrowing” with “hybridization.” Can we explain these ideas without relying on jargon? Probably we can. Probably we should. This verdict was shared by my peers in the tutorial, and I was relieved to know I wasn’t the only one of this opinion.

Interestingly, “strategic or opportunistic ID” for some reason has no contrasting partner. Perhaps the author couldn’t think of one. This suggests that conceptual oppositions are highly subjective. Perhaps the desire to categorise interdisciplinarity in terms of binary oppositions is less about truth and more about our scholarly obsession with (or even fetishisation of) tidy tables. Hegel made a similar point about Kant’s table of judgements (in the first Critique), each heading of which forms four neat tables of triadic moments. Hegel’s point is that they are not derived logically but are instead the result of Kant’s psychological preference for symmetry. Is this also true of “-disciplinary” typologies?

Is transdisciplinarity a return to intradisciplinarity? Intradisciplinarity describes different disciplines whose borders do not intersect. Once we “transcend” disciplinary boundaries, does a single discipline reemerge – a sort of “mother” discipline? Do we return to a holistic view of education that is more typical of ancient philosophy? The sciences used to fall under “natural philosophy” – hence the title of Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

Should we pursue the “systematic integration of knowledge,” as Klein suggests? This might also stem from a fetishisation of order and unity. Is a systematic integration of knowledge even possible? It might be possible within mathematics, though practitioners must share certain axioms (or primitives). Systematic integration is proving difficult in physics (e.g., bridging macro-scale general relativity with micro-scale quantum observations). It may be impossible in other disciplines, especially with highly subjective, value-laden, or phenomenological data. We should not presuppose that systematic integration is possible or desirable. Klein mentions on p.29 that this “quest” for systematic integration “also accepts plurality and diversity.” I’m not fully convinced. Isn’t there an obvious tension between striving for “systematic integration” and “accepting plurality”? How does transdisciplinarity deal with this tension? What if the best way to embrace plurality is, in fact, to abandon the quest for an ‘ever closer union’ between disciplines? What if embracing plurality requires us to embrace disintegration and irreconcilability?

In what way does transdisciplinarity go “beyond” disciplines? Does it leave them behind? Does it destroy them? Does it render all disciplinary boundaries translucent, whereas intradisciplinarity makes them opaque? Does transdisciplinarity treat disciplinary boundaries as heuristic devices or illusions which are useful in certain contexts, but which should never be made concrete or “reified”?

Is it just the boundaries that are being transcended? Are we also transcending attitudes endemic to certain disciplines?

Klein mentions “methodological ID”: e.g., “borrowing a concept or method from another discipline.” This made me wonder there is something that could be called “spontaneous methodological ID.” This would occur when we spontaneously borrow methods or concepts that support our argument. As this is spontaneous and instrumental, the practitioner does not necessarily care about (or facilitate) convergence between disciplines. Spontaneous interdisciplinarity is like “bricolage,” where a work or practice is constructed out of things that happen to be available in the moment.

Here I am, creating yet another category of interdisciplinarity…

How many distinctions do we need?

Will they keep on breeding, like rabbits?

What, really, is the purpose of all of these distinctions? Whom do they serve?

Does the theorisation of interdisciplinarity actually increase interdisciplinarity in the world? Do practitioners of interdisciplinarity need, want, or even benefit from theorisation?

—“a rendezvous of questions and question marks.”

2. The Dark Side of Transdisciplinarity

Now I turn to a paper by Basarab Nicolescu, a leading proponent of transdisciplinarity. In “Technological Singularity” Nicolescu argues that we are experiencing a “new barbarism” characterised by transhumanism, panterrorism, and anthropocene. He describes the “dark side” of the technological singularity, the hypothetical point at which artificial intelligence surpasses “all current human control and understanding.”

I enjoyed how Nicolescu floats between disciplines. For me, this is the clearest demonstration of transdisciplinarity in practice. Transdisciplinarity seems similar to interdisciplinarity, except the disciplinary transitions are faster and more confident; there is less signposting. Transdisciplinarity allows a scholar to cover many topics rapidly. It favours broad overviews.

The trade-off is that many claims lack specificity and are, at times, obscure: e.g., “The Subject and the Object are immersed in the Hidden Third.” This sounds like philosophical mumbo-jumbo to me. A “new spirituality, free of dogmas” also sounded quite ideological (ironically). I think we should be far more cautious. Many things can become dogmas, especially the conviction that we are free of dogmas.

Nicolescu tends to make bold assertions: e.g., “This new form of totalitarianism will inevitably use the new technologies – including 3D printing in order to produce arms and bombs, Internet of Things (IoT) in order to commit mass crimes, electronic chips implanted in the human body in order to dispose of a fabulous quantity of information, and so on.”

I’m not a fan of the word inevitably. I imagine scholars from specific disciplines – politics, computer science, terrorism studies, and so on – would be more cautious. Is this confident, assertive style typical of Nicolescu, or is it endemic to all transdisciplinary scholarship?

3. A Visit from a Muse

We turn now to a final interdisciplinary piece: Midgelow’s “A New Kind of Learning.” Midgelow makes the case that improvisation, particularly somatic (embodied or bodily) improvisation, is excluded from academia. Theory is prioritised over practice. The mind is prioritised over the body. Improvised dancing is seen as messy, self-indulgent, and difficult to assesses in a standardised manner.

I thought it apt, then, to write the rest of my reflective blog as a “free write.” I won’t edit anything from now on, and I’ll write it all on the fly. I’ve done a fair bit of conceptual analysis so far in this blog, so I’ll make it more about me, my plans with my ECTF workshop (a free writing workshop), my relation to improvisation, and its value.

Midgelow talks about the value of surprise. All too often in academia we trust ideas only if we can hold them in place, study them, pin them down. But improvisation is all about surprising ourselves and letting go of the belief that we can predict and know everything in advance. Surprise is the mother of creativity — there! There’s a fresh idea, an unplanned aphorism, a bolt from the blue; and notice, too, how my style has changed. There’s a certain presto energy, a drive that was previously absent. As academics – cerebral people – we underestimate the value of somatic (bodily) movement and knowledge. We also underestimate just how much content can follow form; how much an idea can be conveyed through practical demonstration.

See me figure myself out on the page. Gain a better sense of how little I know about myself. Focus less on the content of my words, and more on what I am trying to achieve as a writer – and convey: a mood, a tempo, a certain musicality.

All of this, of course, is missing from your typical journal article, which is edited into oblivion and stripped of its quirkiness. Midgelow mentions that improvisation often comes across as messy and self-indulgent. It’s all about me, and I’m not holding your hand or unpacking my words. But it’s also about you, and anyone else. I’m writing from life, from my lived experience. I haven’t the time to compose erudite, jargon-laden sentences. All is bare. The free writer is an ideal, an exemplar. Improvisation liberates – the artist as much as the audience. The lone dancer dances best, but overjoys the world when he is seen as last. There is courage in letting go, but also power: for we hold on to masks that make us weak – the mask of consistency: that all my thoughts cohere. Of course they don’t! My mind is jumbled. Accept it for what it is. Express it as it wants to be expressed. Fear of contradiction ties the tongue.

I think improvisation has an arresting sort of transdisciplinarity to it in the same way that anyone, of any time or place, is mesmerised by birdsong or the swirling formation of clouds. Improvisation always taps into something greater than itself. It is light encroaching on shadow. It draws inspiration from the unseen. We are conduits, empty vessels filled with lines. Life pours melancholy pleasures into our pen; we write with a sense of obligation. Were life to speak, it would be understood by all. There is communality to the naked body. To disrobe of pretence, jargon, conventions; to be untimely and unfashionable, yet almost universally relatable: this is the transdisciplinary power of improvisation.

Me — I haven’t said enough about myself. In a month or so I will organise a free writing workshop. I’m not sure if there is any way to convey the value of improvisation, compellingly, without practice; therefore I’ll get participants to write and to see for themselves its benefits. I could list them:

1. Creative

2. Transdisciplinary/accessible

3. Cheerful

Midgelow also mentions that improvisation, in a higher education context, is or should be governed and in a sense constrained by practice, discipline, and so on. Improvisation is not without its shackles. We dance in chains. The bird that leaves the cage must still obey the rules of flight. There is, hence, a subtle interplay between freedom and constraint. We are free from certain academic conventions and discipline-specific confines, but still we are constrained, willingly, by logic, beauty, and the demands of our target audience.

Freedom in chains…

A poem might demonstrate the point. I write this spontaneously, caring less for content and more for form: the constraint of iambic pentameter.

I know not what to write, and yet I find

that writing happens of its own accord.

Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.

I try to let thought follow its own path

and find I like its path more than my own.

There is a lesson here for researchers,

writers, and teachers: that we should allow

our lessons to emerge all on their own;

for thought to dance to native melody

beyond the ears of men; for ink to flow

as rivers do – emotions from the clouds –

and sentences as streams of consciousness;

for words to be born of this world, earthen,

muddy, yet clear to all who live; practice

to be the channel that directs the flow,

and inspiration bound by riverbed.

I’m not sure how much of that makes “sense,” but perhaps there was a moment where I managed to convey the creative potential of improvisation, its universal (or near-universal) voice, and perhaps also the joy that I feel when writing in this way. And now the fun part: I get to go back and reread “my” writing. I use scare-quotes because, in truth, I was hardly there: it was a peak moment – a visit from a Muse.