The borderology of interdisciplinarity: A case of love and friendship

Abstract

Calls for interdisciplinarity in the humanities often presume the existence of disciplines as separate academic fields, with research collaboration framed as a crossing of the borders between separate areas of knowledge. By way of two case studies and a comparative approach called borderology, the chapter questions such a notion and investigates other aspects of interdisciplinary work as practiced by researchers in the humanities and the social sciences. First, the rich work on modern love by sociologist Eva Illouz, illustrating a form of intrinsic interdisciplinarity, is analyzed. Second, recent work within friendship studies is compared, and borderology is used to shed light upon friendship both as a real phenomenon and as a cluster of concepts invoked and investigated by different disciplines. These examples may help policy makers appreciate one of the ways in which the humanities are always already interdisciplinary.
Original languageDanish
Title of host publicationMapping Frontier research in the Humanities
EditorsClaus Emmeche, David Budtz Pedersen, Frederik Stjernfelt
Number of pages19
PublisherBloomsbury Academic
Publication date1 Dec 2016
Pages77-96
Chapter5
ISBN (Print)978-1-4725-9768-7
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-4725-9769-4
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2016

Keywords

  • Faculty of Humanities

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