Despite the different paths they took, Woods and Federer both conquered their fields. For his part, Roger Federer “dabbled” in a dozen different sports, cultivating his “athleticism and hand-eye coordination” in diverse arenas before concentrating on tennis, while many of his friends focused on tennis much earlier (3). Tiger Woods played golf on national television at age two, impressing (among others) Bob Hope he won a ten-and-under tournament later the same year. Epstein, a former Sports Illustrated writer, starts his book with deceptively simple stories about golf and tennis. In his most recent book, Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein explains lucidly and with voluminous research why generalists thrive in an era of increasing specialization. Indeed, for all the handwaving at cross-disciplinary projects, universities continue to fetishize specialization.
The god-term “interdisciplinarity” serves as a cloak for provincialism. Seldom do we meet practitioners in other fields as equals. In practice, however, crossing disciplinary boundaries too often amounts to invasion rather than collaboration: we use or critique other disciplines to our own ends.
I have never met anyone who said that she opposes interdisciplinary scholarship in principle, and plaudits generally await those who cross-pollinate their research with research in other fields. University faculty and administrators make considerable noise about “interdisciplinary” work.
0 kommentar(er)
