A Conference on Interdisciplinarity and Research

Saturday 31st May, Birkbeck College, University of London

Disciplinary boundaries can be both prisons and safety zones. We are often tempted to transgress the boundaries of our disciplines, but at what cost and with what consequences?

Consortium Projects and The Faculty of Lifelong Learning, Birkbeck College, invite proposals from post-graduate students for a multifaceted conference of papers, demonstrations and art work celebrating and critiquing interdisciplinary work.

Within and outside the academy there is increasing discussion of interdisciplinary work and practice, as well as those projects which describe themselves as trans-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary or anti-disciplinary. However, an overarching obsession with professional success, audience comprehension, evaluation criteria and funding streams seems to belie this apparent challenging of traditional boundaries. Whilst at the intersection of disciplines new and fascinating ideas, methods, and even disciplines are born, perhaps there is naivety in an interdisciplinary rhetoric?

Proposals are now being accepted for individual twenty-minute papers concerning the issue of interdisciplinary research. Participants may wish to outline the problems of working outside and across disciplines from a theoretical and methodological point of view, or present papers which demonstrate an inter or multi-disciplinary approach. Suggested topics, arguments and perspectives include:

• New methodologies and theoretical positions arising out of inter/multi/trans-disciplinary work
• Projects which cross the boundaries of the social sciences and humanities
• Innovative research approaches, including action research and practice-based work
• Defence of disciplinarity and critiques of interdisciplinary approaches
• Historical and theoretical engagements with interdisciplinary work (historical examples and socio-political contexts)
• Innovative approaches to the study of research objects (archives, interviews, cultural objects, events, performances, etc.)

Proposals of around 300 words and a brief biography, as well as queries concerning the conference, should be sent to boundariesconference@yahoo.co.uk by 5pm on 28 March 2008.

Consortium Projects is a research, development and production agency comprised of current students and alumni from the London Consortium (Architectural Association, Birkbeck College, ICA, Tate, Science Museum).

The Faculty of Lifelong Learning, Birkbeck College offers over 900 modules across academic disciplines, attracting over 13,000 adult learners to venues across London.