21st-century humanities: Art, complexity, and interdisciplinarity

• Authors: Paul Youngman
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article contends that the evolution toward interdisciplinary collaboration that we are witnessing in the sciences must also occur in the humanities to ensure their very survival. That is, humanists must be open to working with scientists and social scientists interested in similar research questions and vice versa. Digital humanities is a positive first step. Complexity science should be the next step. Even though much of the ground-breaking work in complexity science has been done in the natural sciences and mathematics, it can, if critically adapted, provide the needed metaphor for a broad integration of disciplines, humanistic and otherwise. Given its almost a-disciplinary nature, a complexity approach to the research problems in the humanities necessarily breaks down silos. Moreover, it can restore and reframe the seamless intellectual fabric sought by researchers before the atomization of the various disciplines in the nineteenthcentury academy.

Keywords

EN

complexity science; digital humanities; technology; art; literature

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Human Affairs
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 22
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 111-121

Dates

published

2012-04-01

online

2012-03-20

Contributors

author

Paul Youngman

• University of North Carolina Charlotte

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/s13374-012-0011-6