Interdisciplinarity is in many ways a premise (a challenge and a possibility) for research on cultural transformations. This seminar will proceed by way of two presentations that intersect in making reference to Barry and Born’s edited book, Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences. In particular, both will refer to the framework for distinguishing between three prevalent forms of interdisciplinarity set out in the book’s introduction: a logic of innovation, a logic of accountability, and a logic of ontology. Thus, the seminar draws on the following two chapters, which will be distributed in advance:

• Barry and G. Born, ‘Introduction – Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the social and natural sciences’, Ch. 1, pp. 1-56, in Barry and Born (eds.), Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences (London and New York: Routledge, 2013)
• G. Born and A. Barry, ‘Art-science: From public understanding to public experiment’, Ch. 11, pp. 247-272, in Barry and Born (eds.), Interdisciplinarity.

Programme:

14.15 Welcome (M. Krogh) 
Introduction (Born and Barry): “On three logics of interdisciplinarity”

14.45 Andrew Barry (Chair of Human Geography, University College London):
“The Anthropocene and the disciplines”

The proposal that the Earth-system has entered a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene, has generated widespread interest across the natural and social sciences, humanities, and the arts. In these circumstances, how has the Anthropocene been understood as an object of interdisciplinary inquiry? And in what ways might the debate about the Anthropocene reconfigure the relations between the disciplines?

15.15 Georgina Born (Professor of Music and Anthropology, University of Oxford):
“Music and interdisciplinarity today”

Music is a particularly rich object for tracing the contours of interdisciplinarity today. Using a comparison with aspects of contemporary art practice, the presentation will uncover several core directions: a predominant engineering orientation enacting a logic of innovation; varieties of music research and public engagement consonant with a logic of accountability; and a rapid expansion of musico-material and musico-social experiments that, by participating in transforming what music is, as well as the nature of and the relations between musical subjects and objects, manifest variants of a logic of ontology.

15.45 Coffee break

16.00-17.00 General discussion of the relation of cultural transformation and interdisciplinarity

General discussion initiated by short reflections on the significance and/or challenges of interdisciplinarity by representatives of the CT-programme.

Please register with Steen Kaargaard Nielsen (musskn@cc.au.dk) no later than Friday, Feb 9. Participants will receive the two chapters by Born and Barry by Feb 12. When registering, please note whether you would like to go for subsequent dinner in town (at participants’ own expense).