Book Launch: Practicing Interdisciplinarity: A Bottom-Up Approach

In interdisciplinary projects and research networks, the members are faced with multiple demands. They are to both advance scientific programs and produce publications, creating visibility for researchers and research alike, bringing (international) experts into dialogue with those involved in the project and thus generate innovative impulses and new ways of thinking while at the same time broaden the scope for self-chosen topics.

The research project IGS “Resonant Self–World Relations in Ancient and Modern Socio-Religious Practices” was faced with these challenges from the beginning, seeking to integrate people and projects from a wide range of disciplines, methods, and time periods. In order to share experiences and challenges of interdisciplinary research a milestone publication of novel formats presents now results and reflections on the way interdisciplinarity is done and how it advances innovative research questions. 

Looking beyond one’s own discipline is not only common practice in the humanities and social sciences research landscape, but almost necessary in order to achieve meaningful and relevant results. This applies not only to established researchers, but also to early career researchers. What can meaningful interdisciplinary work look like in such an academic environment? What tasks and constraints, demands and requirements do researchers face? How can interdisciplinary research projects be organized in a meaningful way? How can different disciplines, their methods and theories be brought into dialogue with each other across the spatial and temporal distance of their subject matter throughout the duration and the successive funding phases? In collaborative contributions, the contributors approach the problem from different angles and in different formats, as conversations, classical research papers, or outlines of processes, always addressing the practical issue of how to practice interdisciplinarity.

To introduce their publication, the research group will present and discuss the core results in an online presentation of the book. We cordially invite you to join us in presenting the publication on Monday, February 3, 2 p.m.

Link:https://uni-erfurt.webex.com/meet/elisabeth.begemann