Interdisciplinarity in the Arts and Humanities: Research, Policy, Publishing
A one-day conference
Date: Friday 20th March 2009
Registration: 9:30 am
Conference begins: 10:00 am
Venue: The Swedenborg Society in Bloomsbury, London
(http://www.swedenborg.org.uk/about-swedenborg-society)
Fee: There will be no conference fee for attendees, but please RSVP to
Sharon Sinclair (sinclas@wmin.ac.uk).
Contributors:
Professor GEORGINA BORN, Sociology, Anthropology, and Music, University
of Cambridge
Dr DAVID CUNNINGHAM, Literature and Aesthetics, University of
Westminster, Editor of ‘Radical Philosophy’
Professor THOMAS DOCHERTY, English and Comparative Literature, Warwick
University
Dr JEREMY GILBERT, Cultural Studies, UEL, Editor of ‘New Formations’
Professor SUSAN MELROSE, Performance Arts, Middlesex University
Dr JOANNE MORRA, Art History and Theory, University of the Arts London,
Principal Editor of ‘Journal of Visual Culture’
Professor PETER OSBORNE, Director, Centre for Research in Modern
European Philosophy, Middlesex University, Editor of ‘Radical Philosophy’
Professor ADRIAN RIFKIN, Art Writing, Goldsmiths College, former Editor
of ‘Art History’
Dr MARQUARD SMITH, Visual Culture Studies, University of Westminster,
Editor-in-Chief of ‘Journal of Visual Culture’
Professor SHEARER WEST, Director of Research, AHRC
Dr JOANNA ZYLINSKA, Media and Communications, Goldsmiths College, Editor
of ‘Culture Machine’
Interdisciplinarity in the Arts & Humanities: Research, Policy, Publishing
This conference sets out to consider the emergence of interdisciplinary
research within the Arts and Humanities during the last 40 years.
Emerging out of the political, social and cultural ambitions of a
changing western world from the 1960s onwards, as well as the academic
corollaries of these endeavours, interdisciplinarity within the academy
became a means of developing a new and complex understanding of what it
means to situate oneself: to act, teach, and undertake research in a
world that no longer broke down according to existing disciplinary
boundaries.
The shifting terrain for these scholarly, institutional, and personal
politics became manifest in, for instance, the emergence of cultural
studies, media studies or, more recently, visual culture studies; the
importation of ‘theory’ within the academy; the political investment
captured in the institutionalization of postcolonial theory, queer
theory, and feminism within the University; as well as the emergence of
new trans-disciplinary problematics such as globalization. Some of this
genealogy has been written. And yet, more work needs to be done. Our
interest in this genealogy is to consider it in light of the histories
of interdisciplinarity within an expanded field: to think of the social,
political and academic field of interdisciplinarity, and its relation to
publishing, governmental policy and funding bodies.
Within this expanded context, it is possible to propose that as a result
of these necessary incursions within the social and academic field, a
forum was required for the public interrogation and dissemination of our
past and present cultures. Thus, the interdisciplinary journal, in
particular, emerged in both the UK and US as a ready and willing space
within which to debate the complexity and intertwined nature of these
cultures. Having very specific political and epistemological agendas,
these journals created an arena for dialogue, provided us with new,
interdisciplinary knowledge, while shaping our understanding of the
world. This genealogy has not been written, and is one of the main
streams/points of interrogation of our conference.
Interdisciplinary journals are, in many respects, the primary means of
(print and electronic) dissemination, and continue to be the
contemporary ‘gold star’ of research achievement. Yet journal publishing
is rarely discussed on its own terms. Equally, with the catchword -
‘interdisciplinarity’ – in the air, government funding bodies and policy
makers have caught on to it, and today it has become an overarching term
for a type of research evacuated of its earlier political, social and
cultural commitments. Or did it? The third stream of this conference
will consider the history and political ramifications for
interdisciplinary research as a result of institutional and governmental
seizure. As such, this conference is the first to bring together the
relationship between journal publishing, policy-making and research
itself, so as to discuss the future of interdisciplinary work in the
Arts and Humanities of the twenty first century.
Organized by: Dr DAVID CUNNINGHAM (University of Westminster and Editor
of ‘Radical Philosophy’), Dr JOANNE MORRA (Central Saint Martins College
of Art and Design and Principal Editor of ‘Journal of Visual Culture),
Dr MARQUARD SMITH (University of Westminster and Editor-in-Chief of
‘Journal of Visual Culture’), and Dr JOANNA ZYLINSKA (Goldsmiths College
and Editor of ‘Culture Machine’)
This conference is the first in a series of projects and events
organized by the Network for Editors of Interdisciplinary Journals (NEIJ)
Dr Marquard Smith
Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Visual Culture
Principal Lecturer in Visual Culture Studies School of Social Sciences,
Humanities, and Languages University of Westminster
32-38 Wells Street
London W1T 3UW
