21st-Century Theories of Literature: A Critical Reflection on an Interdisciplinary Event

Authors

  • Philip Gaydon University of Warwick
  • Andrea Selleri University of Warwick
  • Phil Gaydon University of Warwick
  • Andrea Selleri University of Warwick

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v2i1.108

Keywords:

philosophy and literature, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, literary theory, aesthetics, conference

Abstract

The authors reflect upon the successes and difficulties of developing and running 21st-Century Theories of Literature: Essence, Fiction, and Value, an interdisciplinary conference held at the University of Warwick on 27-29 March 2014.

The aim of the conference was to encourage a more sustained focus on the overlap between two disciplines which, prima facie, have a lot in common: philosophical aesthetics (and in particular its literary branch, the philosophy of literature) and  literary studies (of which literary theory may be considered a subdivision). Because both deal with literature and have an investment in the idea of theorisation, one might have thought that there was no need to encourage active dialogue and it would arise naturally from the needs of each field. However, in the current institutional state of affairs where philosophy departments and literature departments often have little overlap, ‘aesthetics’ and ‘literary theory’ are two very distinct entities, and interaction is underdeveloped even when room for it does exist. As such, we judged that there was a need for such a prompting. This piece presents the rationale for our conference, and describes its preparation, development and outcomes.



Photo credit: Wittgenstein Vector, copyright eXegesis -  J. Robles, M.D. Rose-Steel, S. M. Steele, 2014.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Becher, T., P.R.Trowler (2001), Academic Tribes and Territories: intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines, Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press

Brewer, G. D. (1999), ‘The challenges of interdisciplinarity’, Policy Sciences, 32, 327-37, http://www.marineresearchnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Brewer1999.pdf, accessed 9 June 2014

Gasper, D. (2001), ‘Interdisciplinarity: building bridges, and nurturing a complex ecology of ideas’, ISS Working Papers - General Series, http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ems:euriss:19078, accessed 09 June 2014

Knight, D. B., L. R. Lattuca, E. W. Kimabll, R. D. Reason (2013), ‘Understanding Interdisciplinarity: Curricular and Organizational Features of Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Programs’, Innovative Higher Education, 38(2), 143-158, http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10755-012-9232-1, accessed 9 June 14

Krimsky, S. (2000), ‘Perspectives from Social Scientists and Humanists: Transdisciplinarity for Problems and the Interstices of Disciplines’, in Somerville, M. A. and Rapport, D. J. (ed.),Transdisciplinarity: recreating integrated knowledge, Oxford: EOLSS, pp.109-14

Lélé, S., R. B. Norgaard (2012), ‘Practicing Interdisciplinarity’, BioScience, 55 (11), 967-975,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1641/0006-3568%282005%29055%5B0967%3API%5D2.0.CO%3B2, accessed 11 June 2014

Moran, J. (2002), Interdisciplinarity, New York: Routledge

Schmidt, J. C. (2007), ‘Knowledge Politics of Interdisciplinarity: Specifying the type of interdisciplinarity in the NSF’s NBIC scenario’, Innovation, 20 (4), 313-328, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ref/10.1080/13511610701760721#tabModule, accessed 9 June 2014

Van Raan, A. F. J. (2000), ‘The Interdisciplinary Nature of Science: Theoretical Framework and Bibliometric-Empirical Approach’, in Stehr, N. and Weingart, P. (ed.), Practising Interdisciplinarity, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 66-78

Display of books

Downloads

Published

2014-08-27

Issue

Section

Critical Reflections