Description
This module provides an introduction to interdisciplinarity and in particular, its role in breaking down traditional boundaries and creating new kinds of knowledge. We address issues facing those conducting interdisciplinary work and look into how they play out in practice. We examine how and why disciplines exist alongside issues that can impede the integration of different disciplinary perspectives through, for example, different conceptions of truth, power and evidence. We combine this with looking at different ways of overcoming these issues including by means of '‘superconcepts’.
Teaching Delivery
Twenty weekly lectures (two per week) and one weekly seminar (small group).
Indicative Topics
Indicative content based on 2023-24.Ìý
Issues: history, truth, power, evidence.Ìý
Superconcepts: structuralism, systems, complexity, fiction, evolution, deconstruction, entropy.Ìý
Module Aims and Objectives
Approaches to Knowledge aims to provide students with an introduction to thinking in interdisciplinary ways. The skills include learning to examining key issues—history, truth, power, evidence—in relation to their disciplinary meaning. Skills in interdisciplinary thinking are provided by examining concepts that can be used in interdisciplinary analysis. This is the start of a longer process toward a set of tools and a mindset that will aid students in constructing their own interdisciplinary university degree.
Recommended readings
Alan Wilson, Being Interdisciplinary, UCL Press
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 19th August 2024.
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