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I have a friend who is fundamentally opposed to the very idea of anyone studying English (or any other “soft” discipline, as she would say). She is set staunchly against the mixing of disciplines; she will not read, despises papers, and considers anything that is not a hard science to be a waste of her time as an engineering student. Moran’s Interdisciplinarity debates the merits of a more holistic education; I feel as if people like my friend should at least think about these points.

Moran touches on the desire I feel to justify my interest in English to this friend with the statement “Most English students will be familiar with the ribbing by students in subjects such as law, engineering, and medicine…” (Moran 18). Although Moran only brushes on the topic and moves on to elaborate on the discipline’s controversial history, I was stuck on this and could only think about my friend’s attitude. I’ve heard it all from her – “You’re going to end up homeless” being my favorite – but each time it comes up I can’t help but remember all the papers she asked me to edit, or the literature I helped her analyze. As much as she likes to deny it, she needs English. She’ll always have e-mails to write, books to read for that one humanities elective, and people to impress. The world can’t be run solely by engineers. There needs to be some culture, some ability to thoughtfully develop an argument, and some willingness to consider the themes that literature contains.

Interdisciplinarity discusses the English major’s problem with earning respect for the discipline. I find it hard to understand why there are students who are willing to write off an entire area of study. I think we need a little bit of everything, whether we choose to specialize in it or not. I respect the laws of physics, the contributions an engineer makes to society, and the cultural understanding anthropology brings. All I ask is for my friend to withhold her judgment enough to let me explain why I want to study English – this discipline has its purpose too.

All in all, the biggest question Interdisciplinarity has brought to my mind is “…why am I friends with her anyway?”

When it took me almost three hours to read through the Introduction (sixteen pages) of Joe Moran’s Interdisciplinarity, I chose to believe that it was an isolated incident. A dry, factual beginning. Many works of fiction and nonfiction alike begin slowly, if a little faster than Moran’s creeping exposition. I told myself, going into “Interdisciplinary English” to put what I had read behind me and give the rest of the book a chance. But, after wading through the entire first chapter I have to wonder if even Moran himself knows at any given time where he’s going. Through vague headings such as, “The Cultural Project of English” or “Literature, Life and Thought” and through his refusal to give the reader any idea what he might be discussing before he discusses it, Moran has crafted a narrative that reads like the lecture of a sleepwalking humanities professor. (Moran 32, 23)

He has also thus far failed to answer what are considered two of the principle questions of academic writing: “Who cares?” And, “So What”? (Graff and Birkenstein, 92-101) That, I believe, is the true reason why this book reads like a legal document. In almost fifty pages, Moran has yet to give any inkling as to how the dilemma of ‘interdisciplinarity’ is relevant to… anyone. Or anything. He has barely brushed by the subject of why it matters. Even throughout the Introduction (while he’s setting up the premise for the rest of the book) in between a whole Academy’s worth of philosophical name dropping, the closest Moran gets to telling us why this all matters in the first place is by relying on the negative connotations of words like “narrow” or “specialize”, or by referencing what other people have to say on the subject, as he did in the case of Jose Ortega y Gasset and his “learned ignoramus”. (Moran 5, 11) And until he does, this book will continue to take me hours upon hours to read through.

As far as the actual content of the book is concerned, I’ve yet to decide how I feel. It has, in spite of its lack of life, forced me to challenge the system of education that public and private colleges across the country have been using for the length of my life dozens of times over. It is a thought that has never once occurred to me, but as I think it through now I can see that there are clear merits to Moran’s argument. Nearly everyone believes in a well-rounded education spanning multiple disciplines, to some extent. That’s why there are educational requirements in every state – and now even some that exist on a national level. These requisites alone aren’t definitive proof that interdisciplinarity is widely encouraged, but they are proof that the majority of the country is in favor of a well-rounded education up through grade twelve, and they do end up facilitating interdisciplinarity by encouraging that classes be created which span several disciplines in order to – if nothing else – allow students to fulfill more requisites in less time. Plus, I’m really, really, really bad at science. And English is easily my favorite subject. But at the same time, I’m also an economics major and I understand that specialization is good for an economy and its people. And the system that Moran describes, one where English or any other subject is an academic focal point, has yet to make any progress despite Moran’s lengthy and detailed accounts of it. He has yet to prove to me that his idea of interdisciplinarity even exists, and it is not because I’m just a harsh and cynical skeptic. He seems to be so caught up in his idea and in the account of his novel that he has forgotten that his readers are not figments of his imagination and that we do not immediately understand each graceful leap of intellect that he takes across the pages of his book as he does.

I can only hope that at some point over the course of us reading this book, we do.

Before becoming a Suny Geneseo transfer, I attended a community college in Auburn, New York, where I had discovered my interest in becoming an English minor. My first thoughts were.. YUCK! The reading is unlimited, the language is too difficult, and jobs.. do they exist?

Excuse me while I enjoy not writing in stiff essay form while blogging. To my understanding, blogging is a much easier way to get a more sufficient idea on a  person and how they converse. Verses stiff essay form, they all look the same to me. So pardon me as I let loose for a little bit, within reason. Back to where I left off..

I had a wonderful teacher who had opened my eyes to the unseeable to many, which was how far you can go with an English Major/minor. The typical major where you are opt to make “more money”  would probably be engineering, or business. But none of those had interest me.. the money or the work. For the last 10 years, I’ve had a keen interest in children. Working with them, playing, teaching, even learning from them. With that being said, I was led to an Education program (which I’m sure you all had guessed). But it was time for me to  pick my minor.

Math? God no

Science? Yikes!

History? ZzZZzzZZZz

English? Hmmm…

After brainstorming a bit, I picked up a few english classes and there it began. This teacher had shown me amazing works of literature. Just beautiful. The words, meanings, stories behind them. It all amazed me. But also scared me. I have an extremely difficult time understanding things the first time around. So although it may take 2-3 reads to clearly understand it’s meaning(it took me almost 6-8 times to understand the first few pages of Interdisciplinarity), it’s understood. I read poems, I read novels, I read chapter books (being an education major). I read everything! And where to begin to describe it all?! I read about pencils, paper, leaves, history, celebrities, black people, white people, tall, short, romance, mathematics.. I mean EVERYTHING! Which is where the whole interdisciplinary concept comes on.

I know almost everyone in this class can bring up at least one time they’ve heard the English major/minor being abused. Can someone tell me why? Why a majority of our people feel the need to talk down to it? WHY? My mind gets lost towards that infuriating question because english is almost everything! It’s more interdisciplinary than any subject I can think of off the top of my head. Which says a lot because there’s always thoughts brewing up there. I think the main issue is that people connect an English major with being relatively easy, because most of us can say we know the language. But there’s a lot more to it that I think people don’t take interest in.

Without rambling on, I’d like to know what all the fuss is about with English majors. Why is it? Is it that people simply don’t understand the language, or is the other way around? Meaning they think they know too much, where the major would be a waste of their time?Why is that I want to know. Why? Why why why?

Throughout this past week, many of my professors started the first day of class with the same question, “What did you do over the summer?” In years past, I have always had a very mundane response: I worked or maybe took a family vacation, nothing out of the ordinary. However, this summer I did something very out of my comfort zone and attended Field School for Archaeology through Geneseo’s Study Abroad program. For one month I lived in a tent and excavated land that was occupied by the Hopewell Indians between 1600 and 2100 years ago. Not shockingly, the next statement was always, “Oh, so you’re an anthropology major.”

You can imagine the confusion that overcame my professors when I explained that no, I am in fact not an anthropology major, but a double major in Business Administration and English. Everyone assumes that because I participated in a summer program that is in a specific discipline (anthropology), that I must want to be an anthropologist. People can not grasp the concept that I am interested in something that has absolutely nothing to do with my majors or future career paths. When I try to explain that I simply really enjoy the study of archaeology and wanted to take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity, they get uncomfortable and smile and move on.

While reading Interdisciplinarity by Joe Moran, I was struck with the feeling that he was trying to describe how I feel every time someone questions why I would waste my time attending Field School when it is so outside of the disciplines I am studying.  I agree with the critique of the academic disciplines that he references frequently, that they are limited and confining. I like the idea of interdisciplinarity, or at least how I understand it, that there should be more of a flow between the academic disciplines, creating an engagement between them. In my mind, the idea of interdisciplinary is like that of a liberal arts college, it allows a student to get a taste of every academic discipline to become a well rounded and cultured member of society.

My interdisciplinary adventure this summer allowed me to experience academics in a new way. Instead of studying from my Business Law textbook or analyzing the syntax in a poem I was plowing through dirt looking for variations in the plow zone and recording it in a archaeological journal. I learned just as much as I would have in a traditional semester class, if not more because I learned about myself by experiencing a world I was in no way a part of before. I learned leadership skills, since everyday a new member of the group was assigned to be in charge, skills that will help me in the world of business. I also took part in  creative writing during my time there; we were expected to journal about our experiences throughout the trip, allowing me to work on my writing skills without being an English class. Learning these skills that are theoretically specific to distinct academic disciplines in a field that has nothing to do with them proves that the idea of interdisciplinarity is a valid one. This allows me to fully appreciate the idea of interdisciplinarity and the importance of it for all students.

Breathing heavily and watching my best friend’s hand turn a concerning purple in my own, I was sitting in an airport terminal at the end of my first semester of college. I had never been on a plane, and as I prepared myself to fly home for winter break, I considered my imminent death and the pointlessness of my life as it came to its inevitable close.

Continue reading “English Academia v. English Careers”