Transdisciplinarity and the Humanities: Problems, Methods, Histories, Concepts

In the late twentieth century, the humanities in the English-speaking world were transformed by the reception of types of French and German philosophy and critical theory that, in one way or another, work across the boundaries of existing disciplines. However, this reception took place in a range of specific disciplinary contexts (especially English literary studies), isolated from the consideration of the nature and innovative potential of the 'transdisciplinarity' of these works. This project is a theoretical investigation into the way certain concepts - for example, art, gender and the new - function across disciplinary borders in the humanities
Research context
Explicit discourses about 'transdisciplinarity' have recently been developed in both Science and Technology Studies and Education Studies. However, these are primarily focused on technological approaches to problem solving (in everyday and policy contexts) and the social organization of knowledges. In neither instance has the idea been connected up to developments in the humanities since the 1960s, or to issues of a fundamental theoretical character about the unity of the humanities as body of knowledge and practice (or the unity of 'the human' itself). Traditionally, philosophy has conceived of itself as providing the forms of universality that span other disciplines. However, for reasons of its analytical formation, English-language philosophy has shown little interest in the question of the status, character and modes of functioning of general concepts across disciplines in the humanities. This is, however, a characteristic of philosophical Romanticism. The study of transdisciplinarity in the humanities must thus address both the existing literature on transdisciplinarity in other areas and the question of the relationship of transdisciplinary concepts to philosophical concepts, historically and analytically - through a new approach to the legacy of philosophical Romanticism.
Aims and objectives
This project aims to address the basic questions: What is transdisciplinarity in the humanities? And to what extent and in what ways is the creativity of a concept linked to its transdisciplinary construction, application or potential? It has among its objectives:
1) the production of case studies, and critical and comparative analyses, of the transdisciplinary structures and dynamics of one major, philosophically informed transdisciplinary text from each of the German and French critical traditions - books which have had a significant impact on recent English-language work. We propose to compare Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944; 1947) and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's two-volume work comprising Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980).
2) the production of case studies of two transdisciplinary 'problematics' (or fields of problems): anti-humanism and gender study.
3) The exploration of a distinctively 'Romantic' transdisciplinarity, through a retrospective investigation of the transdisciplinary dynamics of early German Romanticism (1785-1800), including analyses of the function of the general categories of 'art' and 'the new'.
Potential applications and benefits
The theoretical breadth of this project and its diverse case studies mean that it should be of interest to a very broad constituency of academics and others in the arts concerned with what is currently thought of as 'interdisciplinary' studies in the humanities. It aims to reorient this field away from the more conservative notion of interdisciplinarity towards the open, more experimental field of transdisciplinary constructions. As such, it should also be of benefit to those in Science and Technology Studies and Education Studies who use the existing discourse of 'transdisciplinarity', by its criticisms of it and its extension beyond its current limits.

As a speculative 'proof of concept' project, of a philosophical character, the impact of this project will be indirect and will take place over a long period. It will primarily achieve cultural impact through art institutions, teaching (in a variety of forms and institutions) and publications in journals in the public sphere.

Who will benefit?
Public participants in art institutional education programmes informed by the teaching and publications of the Investigators; artists and curators interested in the relation of disciplinary knowledges to broader forms of cultural and artistic production, and the consumers of such products of the cultural and creative industries.

How will they benefit?
Through the acquisition of knowledge and intellectual skills useful to the innovative development of their professional practice (artists and curators); through exposure to the cultural products so produced (public participants and consumers) - fostering a sense of the interrelatedness of practices and their connection through common 'problematics' or fields of problems.

What will ensure they have the opportunity to benefit?
The main means of the dissemination of outputs relevant to impact will be the project web pages. It will be part of the research administrator's job to research and set up a wide variety of links to other relevant sites, situating the research within an easily accessible network of related practices. The second means will be the individual activities of the Investigators, first, in postgraduate curriculum development and, second, through public lectures and artworld publications, in which the outcomes of the research process will appear mediated by the occasions and topics at hand. (See Capability section of the Impact Plan).