Mind Blowing Conclusion: Interdisciplinarity Today

As I was reading the conclusion of Moran’s Interdisciplinarity, I was again astounded by the complexity and layers of this subject.  Moran discusses and acknowledges a ‘critique’ to interdisciplinarity: that it can be directly linked to political and economic agendas, particularly within colleges and universities.  Moran sums up an argument made by Bill Readings, “In other words, Readings suggests that interdisciplinarity has as much to do with universities managing budgets and being flexible to the demands of the marketplace as it does with the admirable aims of intellectual dialogue and co-operation, since merging departments into interdisciplinarity programmes can be a form of downsizing and cost-cutting.” (Moran, Interdisciplinarity).  Hal Foster also believes that “university administers can ‘seek to recoup interdisciplinarity ventures as cost-effective programs.'” (Moran, Interdisciplinarity).  It is interesting to me that the subject of interdisciplinarity can be seen as a threat to all other disciplines and causes issues with how modern day universities are run, now that some may aim to lump together to cut down on smaller or more specific disciplines in the name of cheaper education.  In a way this concept challenges the foundations of the spirit of interdisciplinarity since the “cost-cutting” programs are limiting disciplines as opposed to stimulating co-operation between them.  But on the other hand it also proves that interdisciplinarity as a concept does not stand alone, and like all other things is touched and manipulated by politics and economics.  Readings and Foster are disagreeing with the claim that “It [interdisciplinarity] is radical or innovative in its own right and can transcend the nature of the university as an economic and political institution.” (Moran, Interdisciplinarity).  Reading this chapter puts interdisciplinarity as a whole into perspective for me, because it as a concept butts heads and comes into contact with other forces such as financial goals, and it not only concerned with the overlapping of academic disciplines.  Moran points out that she sees the validity of these opinions but also states that “they underestimate the survival of the disciplines within contemporary universities.” (Moran, Interdisciplinarity).  She points out that it has become almost a necessity in the modern market place for graduates to have more and more specific fields of knowledge and expertise, which encourages the use of in-depth knowledge of individual disciplines.  Moran agrees that interdisciplinarity can touch and in some ways alter disciplines, especially English, but as a whole she does not predict a decay in the separation of disciplines in universities.