Let me just add to the discussion here a structural question that came up in class last week as we thought about the role of critical theory as a lingua franca among the humanistic disciplines. We noted that a discipline may have a canon of objects and a canon of methods. Literature has long had both, the canon of texts for interpretation, and the canon of theory. History has a canon of methods, but not of objects; likewise anthropology. Are methods what the humanistic disciplines most share?
A few possibilities for interdisciplinary communication:
- As a series of a ad hoc arrangements, individual embassies among the disciplines that do not necessarily offer shared terms for other connections (or even other occasions).
- As a shared commitment to ordinary language (to essayism?)—disciplines may write articles to themselves, essays to other disciplines and to the world at large.
- The existing canon of critical theory as a common language for interpreting the work and the value of different disciplines. (Primarily a European canon—but potentially expandable.)
- An alternative common language, of theory or method or technique or value etc. What could that be?
