I wrote the following essay (“From ‘Material and Philosophick Necessity’ to ‘Intellectual Physicks’”) several years ago, as an inaugural entry into a new approach to outmode both “interdisciplinary” and “multi-disciplinary” studies. I call the approach "Historical Inter-Field Studies." Click here or on title.
The books are everywhere, stacked like barricades between me and my family, on coffee tables, end tables, the kitchen table, dining room table, chairs, desks, dressertops… Published in Constance Coiner and Diana Hume George, eds. The Family Track: Keeping Your Faculties while You Mentor, Nurture, Teach, and Serve. University of Illinois Press (1998): 107-13. Click here or on title.
What could economists and literary /textual critics have to offer each other? Such was the question posed at the SCE's international conference on "New Economic Criticism," where economists and literary critics convened to discuss their connections, contracts, and disparities. Although it became obvious that scholars from the two disciplines were not truly engaging each other, by the Saturday evening session this demon of discourse was exorcised and the entire group had begun an open discourse about the relations between the disciplines. (Originally published in The Society for Critical Exchange News & Notices. Winter/Spring, 1995, pages 11-12.)
