Jerry A. Jacobs

At this point, a call along the lines of "We need to break down this disciplinary silos and get those eggheaded professors working together on a project that matters" is conventional wisdom, not a radical cry to action. In this deeply researched empirical work, Jacob torches this hoary piece of conventional wisdom, showing disciplines as durable organizing factors in intellectual work, characterized by fluid boundaries and a internally synthetic views.

Jacobs categorizes disciplines by two show more factors: First, the present of an internal labor market, a la Stephen Turner. Second, an omnipresence in American colleges and universities. By his measure, there are eight first tier disciplines: Biology, chemistry, English, history, mathematics, political science, psychology, and sociology. Economics, physics, and philosophy are nearly as common, then computer science, anthropology, art history and the classics. After that things get rather fragmented. A closer look at what students major in show that traditional liberal arts disciplines tend to be cannibalized by preprofessional majors; communications rather than English, or business rather than economics. Likewise, a study of the 700 odd new journals founded in 2008 showed that roughly 40% described themselves as interdisciplinary, but that these integration was a narrow focus on specific topics, rather than a broad synthesis across fields. Two case studies, of education and American studies, show the difficulties in maintaining intellectual quality and vigor in interdisciplinary program, which may tend to become backwaters, or unable to sustain their integrity against college pressures.

Jacobs' thesis, clearly and elegantly presented, is that knowledge must be organized in some way, and that disciplines provide a way to cover broad curriculum (English) while allowing scholars to specialize (19th century British decadent poets). Disciplines link big departments at big public universities with small departments, and even lone scholars at smaller campus. Disciplines provide a set of standards and a market for intellectual knowledge and scholars. To the extent that interdisciplinarity endeavors succeed, it is because they replicate disciplinary structures.

Far less polemical than I expected, this book is vital for anyone who works in American higher education. show less