Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies Volume 05 (1987)
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Item Origen: Reading as Discipline and as Sacrament(Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 1987) Klein, Julie Thompson; Bailis, Stanley; Miller, Raymond C.The work of Origen, an Alexandrian Father of the Church, falls in the first half of the third century A.D., before the Council of Nicaea established a firm rule of faith. Origen's work at Alexandria and Caesarea helped establish Christian Bible study as an alternative to Greek philosophy and Jewish scriptural study and interpretation, while drawing heavily on both these rival traditions. Origen's three great surviving commentaries on the Gospels of John and of Matthew and on the Song of Songs show subtly differing ways of integrating Christian, Greek, and Jewish culture and knowledge, both sacred and secular, within the framework of allegorical interpretation. Origen interpreted not only the Old, but also the New Testament allegorically and thus, at least in his late Commentary on Matthew, was able to arrive at an open (to the future) definition of the interpretive community as in the process of growth and learning.Item Controversy and Canon in the Undergraduate Humanities Curriculum: The Example of Biblical Studies(Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 1987) Klein, Julie Thompson; Bailis, Stanley; Miller, Raymond C.The question of canon, of whether undergraduates should read an authoritative list of books, raises substantial epistemological and pedagogical issues which may be obscured if the question is framed merely as a struggle between the left and the right for control of educational policy. These issues can be highlighted if the question is framed in the concept of reading canonically, that is, reading so as to nourish vision and action. The article summarizes ways Biblical scholars have developed the concept of reading canonically over the past ten years and explores how reading canonicaily may be of use to teachers who find themselves in a daily struggle with narrow and narrowing notions of consumerism and careerism which severely limit human potential.Item Reading the Bible, Writing the Self: George Herbert's The Temple(Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 1987) Klein, Julie Thompson; Bailis, Stanley; Miller, Raymond C.George Herbert's unified poetic text, The Temple, may be read as Herbert's attempt to gain wholeness through reading the Bible and the signs of God in the natural universe. For Herbert, holy insight is based on comparing the one with the many. In "Prayer (1)," for instance, Herbert provides a long list of prayer's functions. Yet the poem's final phrase, "something understood," suggests that Herbert has absorbed the learning represented by this list, has simplified and replaced prayer's multifarious utility. The relation of part (or function) to whole (or purpose) in people's lives, and in human history, is repeated in the mysteries of divine history, which Herbert studies in the two sonnets entitled "The Holy Scriptures." In the second of these poems, Herbert notes that "This verse marks that, and both do make a motion/ Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie." In reading the Bible, Herbert is writing his own version of Holy Scriptures. The pun on "lie" suggests his poetic feigning. Herbert's study of the relationship of reading to writing presents a complex and paradoxical evaluation of the ways of learning.Item An Introductory Comment: Integration, Cultural and Academic(Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 1987) Klein, Julie Thompson; Bailis, Stanley; Miller, Raymond C.Item Intellectual Integration(Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 1987) Klein, Julie Thompson; Bailis, Stanley; Miller, Raymond C.Poetry serves as the prototype for integrating our culture and our minds. We need to put together things by retaining the identity of the parts yet creating new wholes. Poetry has a desirable tension between order and disorder in all of its dimensions--sound, image, and time. We need to overcome the segmentation of the communities of discourse (e.g. the disciplines} and that in the mind which reflects it. Individuals need to rediscover integrations for themselves by which they would change themselves and offer change to others.Item Criminology: Discipline or Interdiscipline(Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 1987) Klein, Julie Thompson; Bailis, Stanley; Miller, Raymond C.In its modern form Criminology has had over one hundred years to assume a truly interdisciplinary nature, yet the dominant approach remains discipline-based. However, as the field of Criminology has evolved, the dominant discipline has shifted from medicine and psychology to sociology. The general rejection by sociologists of contributions from other fields seems based not only on normal disciplinary chauvinism, but also on a strongly held normative view that social conditions are more responsible for crime than innate individual differences.Item Response to Nicholson: The Case for Agreement about Interdisciplinarity(Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 1987) Klein, Julie Thompson; Bailis, Stanley; Miller, Raymond C.Item Postmodernism and the Present State of Integrative Studies: A Reply to Benson and His Critics(Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 1987) Klein, Julie Thompson; Bailis, Stanley; Miller, Raymond C.Benson and his critics seem to make three troubling assumptions: 1) There is only one valid theoretical approach to interdisciplinary studies. 2) Unanimous agreement is a possible and desirable goal. 3) When a consensus on general principles and methods is achieved, a new legitimacy will follow. These assumptions are all wrong because they are based in the modern Cartesian school of foundationalist epistemology rather than postmodern epistemology. Knowledge and justification are better understood as social phenomena rather than as grounded in nature, reason, language or historical laws. Interdisciplinarians should be open to a variety of approaches, picking what works the best for the time being.