Humanities, Culture, and Interdisciplinarity: The Changing American Academy

by Julie Thompson Klein

The study of culture in the American academy is not confined to a single field, but is a broad-based set of interests located within and across disciplines. This book investigates the relationship among three major ideas in the American academy—interdisciplinarity, humanities, and culture—and traces the convergence of these ideas from the colonial college to new scholarly developments in the latter half of the twentieth century. Its aim is to define the changing relationship of these three ideas and, in the course of doing so, to extend present thinking about the concept of "American cultural studies." The book includes two sets of case studies—the first on the implications of interdisciplinarity for literary studies, art history, and music; the second on the shifting trajectories of American studies, African American studies, and women's studies—and concludes by asking what impact new scholarly practices have had on humanities education, particularly on the undergraduate curriculum.

278 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2005

Reviews

[Tom Calvard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thoughtful but ends up slightly dull without a particularly powerful message or set of messages, in my humble opinion.