Exploring Interdisciplinarity: The Significance of Metaphoric and Metonymic Exchange

Abstract

Drawing upon five years of experience with an interdisciplinary initiative, colleagues in biology, literary studies, and physics offer a framework by which to understand the nature and value of interdisciplinary work. Effective interdisciplinary exchange depends on a dynamic and mutual interplay that challenges normally unexamined disciplinary assumptions. Effective interdisciplinary exchange can not only reinvigorate the disciplines but also engage them more effectively in a common intellectual enterprise, one that in turn is able to engage more effectively with a wide range of human concerns beyond the academy.

Keywords

• disciplinary training
• emergent systems
• generativity
• interdisciplinary conversation
• metaphor
• metonym