IDS201 IDS Academy Part1

While it's difficult to
pinpoint the exact moment when

interdisciplinary
was first used,

what we do know for certain
is that the word itself is

a product of the 20th century.

Historical conditions
in the 20th century

created a need for the
term interdisciplinary

and related words such
as interdisciplinarity.

But what were those conditions?

This lecture offers a
brief, a very brief overview

of the history of
interdisciplinary studies

as a field in universities and
colleges in the United States.

I build on the module
content to show

that interdisciplinarity
and interdisciplinary

studies as a field
emerged in response

to the development of
academic disciplines,

especially in the late
1800s and early 1900s,

or the late 19th and
early 20th century,

when academia witnessed intense
specialization and the rise

of distinct disciplines.

So you'll see that I won't
be able to cover extensively

the early, early history
of the disciplines,

but I'll touch upon it briefly
in the first few slides.

Now, the goal is
to help us better

understand in a general
sense the relationship

between interdisciplinary
studies and the disciplines.

But more importantly, I want
you to pay specific attention

to the origins of
the disciplines

and how the disciplines
themselves would

shape learning and education.

Let me first offer some
definitions to get us

all on the same page.

The first is, of
course, discipline.

A discipline is a branch
of knowledge or study--

and some of you may see
these as subjects or majors--

taught and researched at
the university or college

level, otherwise known
as the academy, that

helps shape the way their
practitioners see the world.

And this is the definition we'll
use throughout the IDS degree

program.

In relation, there are also
what we call subdisciplines

and interdisciplines.

So a subdiscipline
is a subdivision

of a traditional discipline.

So the discipline of
anthropology, for example,

has developed several
subdisciplines, including

cultural anthropology,
physical anthropology,

urban anthropology, and
even economic anthropology.

And interdiscipline,
which literally

means between the
disciplines, is an entity

that sits between the
bodies of knowledge defined

by the theories and methods
of already-established

disciplines.

An interdiscipline often begins
as an interdisciplinary field

but over time becomes
just like a discipline,

developing its own
perspectives, journals,

and professional associations.

So for example, biochemistry
and neuroscience

have already made the
transition from interdiscipline

to an actual discipline.

But programs like
ethnic studies,

women's and gender studies, that
transition is still underway.

So how did forms of knowledge
production that exist today--

this thing that we call
academic disciplines--

how did they arise?

What historical conditions
produced the disciplines?

By the time of the
ancient Greeks,

knowledge had accumulated
to such an extent

that Plato's Academy, which
was started in 387 BC--

and for those of you
who may already know,

Plato was a Greek philosopher,
a thinker, a mathematician,

and his Academy, depicted
here in the image

to the bottom left, offered
instruction in gymnastics,

music, poetry, literature,
mathematics, and philosophy.

And in fact, the term academy
comes from the district

of Athens where Plato taught.

Now, the purpose of Plato's
Academy and teaching

all of these
different subjects was

to promote the physical,
moral, and social development

of the entire person, what
they called the whole person.

Now, these concepts were
foundational to the values

of the modern humanities,
a liberal education

or a liberal arts education
as well as general education.

But it was Aristotle, the
other great philosopher,

who began the practice
of dividing knowledge

into disciplines, in that
Aristotle established

a very clear hierarchy between
different academic subjects.

Although later, he
would find that it

was regrettable but
still necessary.

The 12th century, however,
witnessed the development

of a new institution
that played a major role

in the ascendancy of
European civilization

and the development
of the disciplines,

and that would be
the university.

So what we know as the
modern university today

has its origins in
the 12th century.

And I define modern
university here

as an institution of
higher learning that

provides teaching and
research and is authorized

to grant academic degrees.

And the university evolved
in the 12th century

from medieval cathedral schools.

And this image here depicts
what that looked like.

So it evolved from
medieval cathedral schools

and rested on the
conviction that there

was an essential and
universal unity of knowledge

and, through Christianity,
that faith was

the highest order of knowledge.

So there was a very
tight relationship

between education and religion
in the early universities.

And the first
universities in the world

appeared in Salerno, Italy,
in Bologna, Paris, Oxford,

and Cambridge, where groups
of students and teachers

met in rented halls or rooms.

By the 13th century,
the universities

were teaching a
curriculum that included

both letters and the sciences,
and University students

tended to study a core
curriculum of the liberal arts,

which at the time was divided
into trivium or logic, grammar,

and rhetoric; and quadrivium--

arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy, and music.

So the purpose of
the curriculum was

to prepare university
students for professions.

So students went on
to then specialize in

theology, medicine, or law,
so very much like the way

that you choose
majors today in hopes

that you will end up
finding a profession

or career in a related field.

In fact, this is the moment
when the term discipline

was introduced.

It was applied to these
professions because

of the perceived need
to relate education

to specific economic,
political, religious,

or ecclesiastical ends.

Right, so I want to be very
clear about this-- this idea

of discipline that
emerges at this moment

is very much about
the proper training,

to discipline someone,
to train someone

for a specific profession.

But I also want to point out
that these university students

were disciplined in the sense
that the university was also

very hierarchical and dogmatic.

And what I mean by
that is that students

were below or subordinate
to their teachers.

They were, in effect,
their disciples, right?

They were the disciples
of professors.

And what was taught, the
doctrine that was taught

was often seen as
final and given.

So this system as a
whole didn't lend itself

to the qualitative
growth of learning.

So the students,
who were all male

and sometimes only
allowed to speak Latin,

had to copy books by hand
because there were no printing

presses at the time.

They had to memorize
sections of the book

and the professor's
lectures on it for class,

and then they would
be drilled and forced

to regurgitate the material
back to the professor to see

if they had learned anything.

So I think needless to say,
if that sounds very familiar,

the point you
should remember here

is that the University
and the disciplines that

emerged during this period
became an engine of knowledge

production that far surpassed
any other method of learning

devised by any
previous civilization.

But by the 1600s to
about the early 1800s,

the Enlightenment and
the Scientific Revolution

had a profound impact on the
development of disciplines.

So while we can say that
the disciplines were

born in 12th and 13th century
medieval universities,

they really came of age
here during the 1600s

through the early 1800s.

So the Enlightenment was
a Europe-wide intellectual

movement that emphasized the
progress of human knowledge

through the powers of
reason, and it also

provided a justification for
the movement known as modernism.

So when you think of modernism,
think of categorization

and classification.

That's essentially what
the Enlightenment pushes--

to categorize, to
classify, and to organize

into neat little boxes.

And the Enlightenment
era witnessed the rise

of prominent thinkers,
including Voltaire,

Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Immanuel Kant, and David Hume.

And these individuals greatly
influenced European ideas

about economics,
government, and science.

At its core, the framework
of Enlightenment philosophy

in Europe was the belief that
reason and rationality provided

an authoritative system of
ethics, aesthetic values,

and knowledge.

So this attention
to rationality is

very important to
the Enlightenment

because they believe that a
government, a system of ethics,

all these things had to be based
on the rational mind and not

on emotion.

So that's another way to
think about the Enlightenment,

this struggle between
rationality versus emotion

and what should shape society.

And one of the main reasons
why the Enlightenment was

able to flourish was because it
was backed by transformations

in science, otherwise known
as the Scientific Revolution.

And the Scientific
Revolution emphasized

greater specialization and
heightened research activity

or empiricism, initially
in the sciences,

but then it spread to
all the disciplines.

And one example of the
Enlightenment's influence

in science is Swedish botanist
Carolus Linnaeus's system

of biological classifications
in Systema Naturae, published

in 1735.

Now, Linnaean
taxonomy is the system

of scientific classification
of plants and animals

that's now widely used in
the biological sciences.

Some of you may be
familiar with them.

So Linnaeus formalized
the distinction

among the continental
populations,

and his work helped characterize
the concept of race.

In the 10th edition
of Systema Naturae,

for example, which
is published in 1758,

Linnaeus proposed that the
world had four subcategories

of Homo sapiens.

There were Americanus,
Asiaticus, Africanus,

and Europeanus.

What I want you to take away
here is that the idea of race

is an example of the way
that the Enlightenment

and the Scientific
Revolution provided

the backdrop for 18th
century European theories

about human difference, and
that knowledge was becoming

more and more specific.

Or what I should
say is the way to go

about gaining
knowledge was becoming

more and more specific,
scientific, empirical.

And it's also
important to put this

within a historical
context because we're

trying to answer what are the
historical conditions that

shape the disciplines.

This period witnessed European
exploration of Africa, Asia,

and the Americas, and
this brought Europeans

into very close
contact with people

whom they found quite
different, and they

felt compelled to
break down human races

into different categories.

But now, it was
legitimized because it

could be backed with
so-called scientific evidence.

So this categorization
of human differences--

you can see here in
these two images--

was based again on so-called
scientific research.

And this included phrenology,
or the measuring of skulls

to determine which race was
more superior than other races.

And the question they
were trying to answer

was, are all the world's people
part of the same human family?

Or are there separate species?

That was the big
question of the day,

and the way that they went about
trying to answer that question

was through a very specific and
narrow disciplinary framework.

So my point is that
the significance

of the Enlightenment
and modern science

is that they challenged this
idea of the unity of knowledge.

And in fact, the early
division of empirical sciences

can be traced back
to this very period.

And the other thing
I want to point out

is that this categorization
and classification, naming

and identification, and thus the
disciplines themselves as one

way to categorize knowledge--

this is not natural.

It is not human
nature to categorize,

but that it had to be learned.

And the Enlightenment and
the Scientific Revolution

set the conditions
for human beings

to start categorizing
and classifying things.

And that spilled
over into academia.