Academics in the humanities must reach out to other disciplines and dare to address some of the key challenges of the times, a conference has heard.

Speaking at Thinking Big: New Ambitions for English and the Humanities, organised by the University of London¡¯s Institute of English Studies and?Newcastle University, Charles Forsdick, James Barrow professor of French at the?University of Liverpool, argued that the humanities in the English-speaking world were often characterised by ¡°linguistic, geographical and methodological limits¡±, when ¡°part of thinking big means getting involved in the ¡®global challenges¡¯ agenda¡±.

Lyndsey Stonebridge, professor of modern literature and history at the?University of East Anglia, said she felt ¡°despairing that literary and English studies are so poorly represented¡± on projects tackling big worldwide issues such as education, public health and climate change.

¡°We have more chance of making humanitarian projects work if we don¡¯t rely solely on the managerial social sciences,¡± Professor Stonebridge said.

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Professor Stonebridge argued that it would help if all literary scholars were to become ¡°postcolonial critics¡±. For various historical reasons, English had now become ¡°an international language¡­But if English is everywhere, why isn¡¯t English studies?¡± she asked.

Other speakers at the event explored how the humanities could embrace collaboration with other disciplines.

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Co-organiser Rick Rylance, dean of London¡¯s School of Advanced Study, suggested that ¡°the breakthroughs happen at the boundaries¡±. His own work with clinical neurologists, exploring what happens in the brain when people read poetry or literary prose, had required him to learn about ¡°brain science, statistical techniques and the approaches to funding required in projects involving human subjects¡±.

Unlike what he called ¡°near-neighbour interdisciplinarity¡± between humanities disciplines sharing many methods and assumptions, he urged delegates to embrace the challenges of ¡°distant-cousin interdisciplinarity¡±, which ¡°changes the object of knowledge and raises questions about what counts as evidence¡±.

Veronica Strang, director of?Durham University¡¯s Institute of Advanced Study, described today¡¯s academy as ¡°like a series of Russian dolls which impose disciplinary identity at every scale¡±. Interdisciplinarity, by contrast, was like ¡°a differently shaped, badly behaved doll¡± which ¡°strays across boundaries, and gets cosy with strangers across the academic spectrum¡±.

To achieve this, Professor Strang went on, ¡°interdisciplinary institutes or centres¡± needed to have ¡°their own neutral space¡± and ¡°sufficient academic and managerial independence from faculties and schools, while also being fully represented on core institutional bodies¡±. They also needed to be ¡°positively supported in institutional narratives, most especially at senior leadership levels¡± as well as supported in more practical ways.

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Herself a member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England¡¯s interdisciplinary advisory panel, Professor Strang hoped that ¡°the next research excellence framework would incorporate ¡°robust criteria that will distinguish real interdisciplinarity (and good interdisciplinarity) from more performative efforts¡±.

It was left to a Polish delegate to point out an unusual barrier to interdisciplinarity, namely that, in his country, ¡°disciplines are laid down by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and imposed on everybody¡±.

matthew.reisz@timeshighereducation.com