"Research work is being part 
of a conversation"


Interdisciplines is a website
for virtual interdisciplinary conferences.

Interdisciplines is an e-institution with a human face!


Conferences are conversations.


This website is a

LiquidPublication project.


If you would like to submit 
a conference project,
please contact us.

Current Conferences

FIRST INIT Virtual Seminar: Inter- and Transdisciplinary Horizons. INIT Purposes and Approaches
Opening date : Feb 21 2012 00:00 UTC
Closing date : Feb 21 2013 00:00 UTC

The challenge is clear.  Understanding and acting on pressing issues of cultural and environmental survival—from  explaining global migration, to pushing the boundaries of new media art and developing sustainable cities—demand rigorous, relevant and engaged forms of scholarship.  As a result, they also call for a profound re-examination of the nature of academic knowledge production and its role in advancing collective understanding and global wellbeing.  How does one discern the relative relevance of problems for study?  In what ways do disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to knowledge production leverage our understanding and capacity to act?  How have individuals and groups attempted to integrate distinct knowledge traditions and worldviews for the advancement of understanding?  What challenges—epistemological, conceptual, empirical, relational, material—do these forms of knowledge production present? How might knowledge production be organized in the future?  How are we to educate individuals to conduct relevant, rigorous and engaged knowledge work?

The Inter-transdiscipinary horizons seminar brings together experts in the humanities, the social sciences, the natural sciences, technology, and education to reflect about contemporary forms of academic knowledge production.  With a focus on disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary scholarship, the seminar will shed light on the purposes that these approaches might best serve, the processes and practices by which understanding is advanced and validated, the leveraging contributions and challenges that these approaches presents, and resulting implications for research evaluation and education.  It is our hope that a comparative analysis of disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to research and education will yield elements toward a comprehensive conceptualization of academic knowledge production—one that articulates, for example, the circumstances under which particular approaches are best fit, the distinct validation challenges they face, and the assumptions about the nature of knowledge and inquiry on which they are built.

The seminar is organized as a virtual platform of conversation and echange of ideas for the INIT network: International Network for Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplnarity

Predictions for International Security: The Knowledge Practice Enigma
Opening date : Jan 26 2012 00:00 UTC
Closing date : Dec 31 2012 00:00 UTC

This conference brings scholars from different disciplines - political science and international relations, sociology, history, economics, demography and philosophy - into a discussion on the nature of predictions in international security. It will address the following questions. How are claims about the future made in international security, a professional realm that is obsessed with knowing the future? How are these claims “sold” on the public marketplace of ideas? Is anticipating the future about anticipating change?

We will meet on Friday March 16th and Saturday March 17th 2012.

The conference will take place at CERI-Sciences Po (on the 16th, 56, rue Jacob) and at ENS (on the 17th, 46, rue d'Ulm).

The conference is organized sponsored by CERI Sciences Po in cooperation with Ecole Normale Supérieure – Institut Jean Nicod. It benefits from the financial support of Institut Jean Nicod, the French Ministry of Defense, the Alliance Program (Columbia-Sciences Po), the CERI (Sciences Po).

Global Humanities
Opening date : Apr 4 2011 00:00 UTC
Closing date : May 31 2012 00:00 UTC

What happens to humanities in a global world? At a first glance, "global" and "humanities" seem contradictory in terms. Indeed, humanities have emerged in a national and local setting. Their development has paralleled the birth and the strenghtening of the nation state. This conference brings into a discussion philosophers and social scientists that will address the following questions. To what extent the very concept of humanities is affected by the dynamics of globalization? What role  institutions such as universities play in this context? Are we witnessing the multipolarization of culture? The specialization of knowledge has created divides between and within disciplines. As knowledge crosses national borders, will this dynamic put into question those disciplinary divides? Will it create new disciplines and new approaches? In what way can we imagine a new role for the humanities in a global world? Has the notion of "humanity" changed because of the globalization of culture and knowledge? What are the cultural, ethical or legal innovations that would testify for such a change?

The conference will take place through the Web starting from June 2011. A kick-off meeting with some of the participants has taken place in New York, on May 27th at the Italian Cultural Institute, 686 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065. Tel: 1 212 879 4242;
fax: 1 212 861 4018; email: iicnewyork@esteri.it

Please, register on the website to take part into the virtual debate.

Recent Comments

Thanks to Angus for focusing attention on Social Ecology. We are fortunate to have three members of the INIT network – Dan Stokols as well as Thomas and Matthias in this forum – who have been involved in building this interdiscipline. The programs at the University of California-Irvine and in Frankfurt are important exemplars of forging new research and teaching areas, even in the face of undermining forces and shifts in emphasis over time.
more

Donate Click to read about
donator benefits.

© Gloria Origgi