I need discipline.
There had used to be a magical, far-off time in academia when people could develop a certain level of expertise in a field, and exploit it. It may not have been a wide field, but that didn't matter. You could still excel at your chosen discipline, and bestow the benefits of your expertise on the world.

Slowly, though, interdisciplinarity became important. This meant learning to ride two or more horses, or having to collaborate with others. Collaboration doesn't come naturally to many academics - certainly not those in my field. "Interdisciplinary", we grumbled, seemed to imply not belonging to any discipline at all.

But we learned to adapt. We learned either to be interdisciplinary, or to go through the motions and look as though we were. And the world carried on turning.

A couple of weeks ago, I learned that interdisciplinarity is now old hat.

We're expected to be transdisciplinary now.

If someone could explain what, exactly, that means, I'd be eternally in their debt. Alternatively, if someone could provide me with a machine that'd get me to the parallel universe in which one could belong wholly to just one discipline at a time, that'd be great as well.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 14:42, 6 replies)

This ^
in spades.

Buckets, in fact.

Cross-collaboration is where it's at, I believe.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 14:46, closed)

Oh, good grief.
Cross collaboration sounds like something bees do.

Or an adjective to describe the mood of two people from different disciplines pissing each other off. If I were asked to work with a sociologist, I imagine the collaborators would be fairly cross.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 14:49, closed)

It's a spelling mistake.
It should be "trance-disciplinary", and it means the pursuit of multiple academic disciplines while ripped to the tits on MDMA and happy hardcore.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 14:56, closed)

Transdisciplinary ...
... having the self-control not to eat too much hydrogenated vegetable oil.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 16:34, closed)

I came across something similiar
many years ago.

Transnational vs international businesses. I think there, the idea was that a Transnational was a company something like Macdonalds offering basically the same product in the same way the world over, whereas an international company adapted much more to local needs and/or had differing operations in differing countries (eg mine in brazil, refine in Japan, manufacture in China).

Perhaps a transdisciplinary approach would involve more involvement in the disciplines of others, rather than the historians talking to the philosophers about history, they might be encouraged to think about philosophy and give philosophers an opinion about philosophy.

That sounds like the kind of thing that might be trendy in today's universities. Jack of all trades, master of none. Your truth is as valid as mine, even if you know fuck all about it and I've spent 12 years studying it.
( Sextant goes to him is emotionally erect, on this day, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 13:00, closed)

Trans = across, inter = between
Does this help? If so...

Transdisciplinary might refer to someone who has a grasp of several disciplines and can see things they have in common.

Interdisciplinary might refer to the way different disciplines interact with one another, and to people that work on such interactions.
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 14:19, closed)

The Transnational and International thing doesn't bother me so much.
Indeed, my first (?) publication exploited the difference. I took "transnational" to refer to that which concerns every nation and none, and "international" to refer to that which concerns particular nations in respect of each other.

I think.

I can't actually remember.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 15:32, closed)