(Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 2007) Navakas, Francine; Fiscella, Joan
While postmodernist and modernist approaches to a range of epistemological and
methodological issues are well established, there is less explicit attention given to the contribution
of interdisciplinarity to these same questions. Through a comparison/contrast format,
this paper will examine the particularities of modernist, postmodernist, and interdisciplinary
theory and practice, and follow with observations regarding the ways in which, despite
complementarities, the interdisciplinary position overcomes problems often associated with
modernism and postmodernism. While in other arenas different aspects of these contested
concepts might be explored, this study promotes inquiry that rigorously addresses how scholarship
can be advanced and how the academy can exercise its responsibility in the public
sphere.