While both texts are fairly different, as one is fiction and non-fiction, I can’t help but to notice a common feature of The Bacchae by Euripedes and Interdisciplinarity by Joe Moran. Given, I may not have understood some of the concepts in both texts due to both of them using “big words” and with Interdisciplinarity being a bit of a dry read at some parts, but I do see a common theme. In both the Introduction of Interdisciplinarity and the entire play of The Bacchae, I noticed that in both cases, there seems to be a struggle to find what should take priority over the latter, may it be the worship of Dionysus or deciding which field of study is more important/ how to create a wholesome study of multiple or single subject fields. While Euripedes certainly went about solving this issue by tearing a man apart (literally), Moran simply describes the academic power struggle that occurred over time. One could also argue that they are also both a kind of history lesson, as Euripedes, like Moran, alludes to events and people that a certain level of background information would help someone understand the text better. Unlike myself, who stopped reading both texts to “Google” many concepts and names while reading. More abstractly, one could say that the combination of both works could resemble the constant battle that academia and religion have, as one is written as a folktale, and the other like a research paper. A bit out there, I know, but it definitely crossed my mind as I attempted to decode the meaning behind each reading.
English Majors Practising Criticism