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Interdisciplinarity
Joe Moran
Routledge (New Critical Idiom Series), 2002
£10.99; Paperback ISBN: 0-415-25132-X
Reviewed by Craig Hamilton
The appearance of Interdisciplinarity is rather timely given how
fashionable the term has become. However, it remains as hard
a term as ever to define. For Joe Moran, interdisciplinarity is
“any form of dialogue or interaction between two or more
disciplines” [16], but this is too vague. Publications that
successfully draw together insights from different disciplines
would represent a useful dialogue, while fruitless
disagreements that result in bitter silence would represent a
useless interaction. But to call each one a form of
interdisciplinarity, as Moran might, entails thinking of
interdisciplinary research as simultaneously useful and useless.
This would be strange. If interdisciplinarity is attractive today, it
is precisely because more often than not it proves to be fruitful
rather than useless.
Moran’s introduction, which contains a history of the formation
of the disciplines, especially in the human sciences, reveals
that the going has always been rather rough. While Andrew
Abbott’s Chaos of Disciplines (Chicago, 2001) offers a history
of the disciplines that is rather different from Moran’s, there is a
clear divide between those who feel we have never been
interdisciplinary and those who feel we have always been
interdisciplinary. Just as Bruno Latour once claimed that “we
have never been modern,” so too would the sceptic in English
Studies claim “we have never been disciplinary.” But if
interdisciplinarity seems problematic, this is because
disciplinarity is even more so. As Moran fully understands,
nobody can offer a definition of English Studies without drawing
immediate criticism from one corner of the field or another.
There is some clarity, however, in Moran’s discussion as to why
philosophy is treated as first-among-equals by other disciplines
on campus. Also insightful is his first chapter on
“Interdisciplinary English,” where the usual suspects—Matthew
Arnold, Arthur Quiller-Couch, I.A. Richards, F.R. Leavis, René
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2. Wellek, Austin Warren, Stanley Fish, and Gerald Graff—all
make an appearance, either in the text itself or in the
references. The picture Moran paints of Leavis is especially
refreshing since it has become commonplace to see him simply
as a curmudgeon who should no longer be taken seriously.
Less fortunate is Moran’s portrayal of English in American
universities. His claim that “composition did not seriously
interfere” [42] with the teaching of literature betrays a
condescending tone that will bother many readers in the US
who know that without rhetoric and composition American
departments of English could hardly justify their existence.
Teaching students how to write is the most lucrative venture of
English departments in the US, and without that business the
expense of studying and teaching literature would not be met.
On this view, then, one can argue that it is literature and not
rhetoric that interferes with the business of the English
department, but that is another argument altogether.
That said, things improve with Moran’s second chapter, which
covers the rise of cultural studies. The work of Raymond
Williams is given fair treatment here, but Moran deals mostly
with Richard Hoggart and Stuart Hall and their work at the
Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of
Birmingham. This is exactly what one would expect in a chapter
on sociology and literature, and Moran does not disappoint
despite the predictability of the story he tells here. The
discussion at chapter’s end is also rather poignant. Scepticism
of English Studies fuelled the creation of Cultural Studies, and
yet many now view Cultural Studies with an equally sceptical
eye. But scepticism and interdisciplinarity go hand in hand it
seems, especially when interdisciplinary research has to be
evaluated.
Fortunately, Moran’s next chapter is more positive. Here we
find reference to the discoveries made over the last century as
English Studies joined forces with linguistics, philosophy,
psychoanalysis, feminism, and gender studies. The result was
namely “Theory” (of one, or another, School of Thought). While
Theory may have once been the lingua franca of the human
sciences, this no longer seems to be the case today for
scholars disillusioned with the ability of Theory to create a more
just world. In his fourth chapter, Moran continues to discuss
Theory by reviewing the keys ideas of Adorno, Foucault, and
Althusser, among others. The most valuable part of this chapter
is that it spells out the differences between Cultural Materialism
in the UK and New Historicism in the US. What seems to
divide the practitioners? Their political commitments, according
to Moran. While British Cultural Materialists may openly engage
in political activism under the guise of scholarship, American
New Historicists seem to do this to a lesser extent. In other
words, politics by other means is what Cultural Materialism
seems to amount to in the UK. Some New Historicists might
object to Moran’s portrayal of them as more timid than their
British counterparts, of course, but for Moran this is the main
distinction between the two schools.
Throughout this book, interdisciplinarity is primarily thought of
as a way of framing literary studies in general, and English
Studies in particular, in relation to other humanities disciplines.
This book is thus aimed primarily at readers from literature
departments. In his final chapter, however, Moran widens his
focus by noting that the rise of Science Studies could suggest
why interdisciplinarity remains valuable. Despite
interdisciplinarity’s inherent problems, it nevertheless remains a
promising enterprise at the end of the day. This, in a nutshell, is
Moran’s main argument. Readers who agree with Moran will
find his book to be very useful. Others, however, might have
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3. their doubts. For example, cognitive science is only mentioned
very briefly at the end of the book, even though it is arguably
the best example of interdisciplinarity that has taken shape on
many campuses in many countries since the 1970s. What is
more, interdisciplinarity of this sort continues today with the rise
of cognitive approaches to the study of language and literature.
But despite overlooking facts like these, Moran’s short book will
give readers from English departments plenty to think about. At
the very least, it may make us reconsider our views of
interdisciplinarity.
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