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59-425: The term "futurist" most commonly refers to people who attempt to understand the future (sometimes called trend analysis) such as authors, consultants, thinkers, organizational leaders and others who engage in interdisciplinary and systems thinking to advise private and public organizations on such matters as diverse global trends , possible scenarios , emerging market opportunities and risk management . Futurist

118-465: A "sense of the whole pattern, of form and function as a unity", an "integral idea of structure and configuration". This has happened in painting (with cubism ), physics, poetry, communication and educational theory . According to Marshall McLuhan , this paradigm shift was due to the passage from an era shaped by mechanization , which brought sequentiality, to the era shaped by the instant speed of electricity, which brought simultaneity. An article in

177-422: A W", i.e. "possible, probable, and preferable" futures, plus "wildcards", which are low-probability, high-impact events, should they occur. Even with high-profile, probable events, such as the fall of telecommunications costs, the growth of the internet, or the aging demographics of particular countries, there is often significant uncertainty in the rate or continuation of a trend. Thus, a key part of futures analysis

236-402: A commitment to interdisciplinary research will increase the risk of being denied tenure. Interdisciplinary programs may also fail if they are not given sufficient autonomy. For example, interdisciplinary faculty are usually recruited to a joint appointment , with responsibilities in both an interdisciplinary program (such as women's studies ) and a traditional discipline (such as history ). If

295-475: A common task. The epidemiology of HIV/AIDS or global warming requires understanding of diverse disciplines to solve complex problems. Interdisciplinary may be applied where the subject is felt to have been neglected or even misrepresented in the traditional disciplinary structure of research institutions, for example, women's studies or ethnic area studies. Interdisciplinarity can likewise be applied to complex subjects that can only be understood by combining

354-465: A crowd of cases, as seventeenth-century Leibniz's task to create a system of universal justice, which required linguistics, economics, management, ethics, law philosophy, politics, and even sinology. Interdisciplinary programs sometimes arise from a shared conviction that the traditional disciplines are unable or unwilling to address an important problem. For example, social science disciplines such as anthropology and sociology paid little attention to

413-540: A research area deals with problems requiring analysis and synthesis across economic, social and environmental spheres; often an integration of multiple social and natural science disciplines. Interdisciplinary research is also key to the study of health sciences, for example in studying optimal solutions to diseases. Some institutions of higher education offer accredited degree programs in Interdisciplinary Studies. At another level, interdisciplinarity

472-435: A single disciplinary perspective (for example, women's studies or medieval studies ). More rarely, and at a more advanced level, interdisciplinarity may itself become the focus of study, in a critique of institutionalized disciplines' ways of segmenting knowledge. In contrast, studies of interdisciplinarity raise to self-consciousness questions about how interdisciplinarity works, the nature and history of disciplinarity, and

531-551: A single program of instruction. Interdisciplinary theory takes interdisciplinary knowledge, research, or education as its main objects of study. In turn, interdisciplinary richness of any two instances of knowledge, research, or education can be ranked by weighing four variables: number of disciplines involved, the "distance" between them, the novelty of any particular combination, and their extent of integration. Interdisciplinary knowledge and research are important because: "The modern mind divides, specializes, thinks in categories:

590-442: Is a learned ignoramus, which is a very serious matter, as it implies that he is a person who is ignorant, not in the fashion of the ignorant man, but with all the petulance of one who is learned in his own special line." "It is the custom among those who are called 'practical' men to condemn any man capable of a wide survey as a visionary: no man is thought worthy of a voice in politics unless he ignores or does not know nine-tenths of

649-424: Is an organizational unit that crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought , as new needs and professions emerge. Large engineering teams are usually interdisciplinary, as a power station or mobile phone or other project requires the melding of several specialties. However, the term "interdisciplinary" is sometimes confined to academic settings. The term interdisciplinary

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708-399: Is applied within education and training pedagogies to describe studies that use methods and insights of several established disciplines or traditional fields of study. Interdisciplinarity involves researchers, students, and teachers in the goals of connecting and integrating several academic schools of thought, professions, or technologies—along with their specific perspectives—in the pursuit of

767-529: Is best seen as bringing together distinctive components of two or more disciplines. In academic discourse, interdisciplinarity typically applies to four realms: knowledge, research, education, and theory. Interdisciplinary knowledge involves familiarity with components of two or more disciplines. Interdisciplinary research combines components of two or more disciplines in the search or creation of new knowledge, operations, or artistic expressions. Interdisciplinary education merges components of two or more disciplines in

826-594: Is given back to the various disciplines involved. Therefore, both disciplinarians and interdisciplinarians may be seen in complementary relation to one another. Because most participants in interdisciplinary ventures were trained in traditional disciplines, they must learn to appreciate differences of perspectives and methods. For example, a discipline that places more emphasis on quantitative rigor may produce practitioners who are more scientific in their training than others; in turn, colleagues in "softer" disciplines who may associate quantitative approaches with difficulty grasp

885-594: Is not in the sense of the art movement futurism . The Oxford English Dictionary identifies the earliest use of the term futurism in English as 1842, to refer, in a theological context, to the Christian eschatological tendency of that time. The next recorded use is the label adopted by the Italian and Russian Futurists , the artistic, literary and political movements of the 1920s and 1930s which sought to reject

944-607: Is seen as a remedy to the harmful effects of excessive specialization and isolation in information silos . On some views, however, interdisciplinarity is entirely indebted to those who specialize in one field of study—that is, without specialists, interdisciplinarians would have no information and no leading experts to consult. Others place the focus of interdisciplinarity on the need to transcend disciplines, viewing excessive specialization as problematic both epistemologically and politically. When interdisciplinary collaboration or research results in new solutions to problems, much information

1003-544: Is sometimes called 'field philosophy'. Perhaps the most common complaint regarding interdisciplinary programs, by supporters and detractors alike, is the lack of synthesis—that is, students are provided with multiple disciplinary perspectives but are not given effective guidance in resolving the conflicts and achieving a coherent view of the subject. Others have argued that the very idea of synthesis or integration of disciplines presupposes questionable politico-epistemic commitments. Critics of interdisciplinary programs feel that

1062-734: Is the managing of uncertainty and risk. Not all futurists engage in the practice of futurology as generally defined. Pre-conventional futurists (see below) would generally not. And while religious futurists, astrologers, occultists, New Age diviners, etc. use methodologies that include study, none of their personal revelation or belief-based work would fall within a consensus definition of futurology as used in academics or by futures studies professionals. Several authors have become recognized as futurists. They research trends, particularly in technology, and write their observations, conclusions, and predictions. In earlier eras, many futurists were at academic institutions. John McHale , author of The Future of

1121-944: The Royal Society of Arts , the New York Academy of Sciences , and the American Geographical Society . He was awarded the Medaille d'Honneur en Vermeil, Society d' Encouragement au Progrès in 1966 and the Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of St. Denis in 1974. McHale was a member of the American Sociological Association , Institute of Ecology, Society for the Advancement of General Systems Theory ,

1180-553: The Social Science Journal attempts to provide a simple, common-sense, definition of interdisciplinarity, bypassing the difficulties of defining that concept and obviating the need for such related concepts as transdisciplinarity , pluridisciplinarity, and multidisciplinary: To begin with, a discipline can be conveniently defined as any comparatively self-contained and isolated domain of human experience which possesses its own community of experts. Interdisciplinarity

1239-453: The 1950s, for private institutions and corporations. The period from the late 1940s to the mid‑1960s laid the conceptual and methodological foundations of the modern futurology field. Bertrand de Jouvenel 's The Art of Conjecture in 1963 and Dennis Gabor 's Inventing the Future in 1964 are considered key early works, and the first U.S. university course devoted entirely to the future

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1298-775: The Association for Interdisciplinary Studies (founded in 1979), two international organizations, the International Network of Inter- and Transdisciplinarity (founded in 2010) and the Philosophy of/as Interdisciplinarity Network (founded in 2009). The US's research institute devoted to the theory and practice of interdisciplinarity, the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity at the University of North Texas,

1357-763: The Boyer Commission to Carnegie's President Vartan Gregorian to Alan I. Leshner , CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science have advocated for interdisciplinary rather than disciplinary approaches to problem-solving in the 21st century. This has been echoed by federal funding agencies, particularly the National Institutes of Health under the direction of Elias Zerhouni , who has advocated that grant proposals be framed more as interdisciplinary collaborative projects than single-researcher, single-discipline ones. At

1416-454: The Center for Integrative Studies (CIS), to deal with the long-term consequences of scientific and technological developments on mankind future and the environment. According to McHale's son, the term Pop Art was first coined by his father in 1954 in conversation with Frank Cordell , although other sources credit its origin to the British critic Lawrence Alloway . Both versions agree that

1475-458: The Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Appalachian State University , and George Mason University 's New Century College , have been cut back. Stuart Henry has seen this trend as part of the hegemony of the disciplines in their attempt to recolonize the experimental knowledge production of otherwise marginalized fields of inquiry. This is due to threat perceptions seemingly based on

1534-592: The Future , published a "Futures Directory", and directed a think tank called The Centre For Integrative Studies at State University of New York in 1968. Futurists have started consulting groups or earn money as speakers, with examples including Alvin Toffler , John Naisbitt and Patrick Dixon . Frank Feather is a business speaker that presents himself as a pragmatic futurist. Some futurists have commonalities with science fiction , and some science-fiction writers, such as Arthur C. Clarke , are known as futurists. In

1593-619: The Greek instinct was the opposite, to take the widest view, to see things as an organic whole [...]. The Olympic games were designed to test the arete of the whole man, not a merely specialized skill [...]. The great event was the pentathlon , if you won this, you were a man. Needless to say, the Marathon race was never heard of until modern times: the Greeks would have regarded it as a monstrosity." "Previously, men could be divided simply into

1652-654: The US and Europe. He exhibited widely in Europe from 1950. He started as a Constructivist artist and then transitioned into his Pop art and proto Op art . With fellow members of the Independent Group, Richard Hamilton , Reyner Banham and Lawrence Alloway he organised the Growth and Form exhibition in 1951, inspired by the work of the scientist D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson . Although it received no financial support from

1711-669: The World Resources Inventory and in the World Design Science Decade Centre at Southern Illinois University Carbondale where he co-authored a number of the reports. McHale published extensively in Europe and the US on the impact of technology and culture, mass communications and the future. His numerous articles include: His books include: McHale was a Fellow (and Secretary-General) of the World Academy of Art and Science ,

1770-478: The adaptability needed in an increasingly interconnected world. For example, the subject of land use may appear differently when examined by different disciplines, for instance, biology , chemistry , economics , geography , and politics . Although "interdisciplinary" and "interdisciplinarity" are frequently viewed as twentieth century terms, the concept has historical antecedents, most notably Greek philosophy . Julie Thompson Klein attests that "the roots of

1829-500: The ambition is simply unrealistic, given the knowledge and intellectual maturity of all but the exceptional undergraduate; some defenders concede the difficulty, but insist that cultivating interdisciplinarity as a habit of mind, even at that level, is both possible and essential to the education of informed and engaged citizens and leaders capable of analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing information from multiple sources in order to render reasoned decisions. While much has been written on

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1888-408: The ascendancy of interdisciplinary studies against traditional academia. There are many examples of when a particular idea, almost in the same period, arises in different disciplines. One case is the shift from the approach of focusing on "specialized segments of attention" (adopting one particular perspective), to the idea of "instant sensory awareness of the whole", an attention to the "total field",

1947-558: The broader dimensions of a problem and lower rigor in theoretical and qualitative argumentation. An interdisciplinary program may not succeed if its members remain stuck in their disciplines (and in disciplinary attitudes). Those who lack experience in interdisciplinary collaborations may also not fully appreciate the intellectual contribution of colleagues from those disciplines. From the disciplinary perspective, however, much interdisciplinary work may be seen as "soft", lacking in rigor, or ideologically motivated; these beliefs place barriers in

2006-479: The career paths of those who choose interdisciplinary work. For example, interdisciplinary grant applications are often refereed by peer reviewers drawn from established disciplines ; interdisciplinary researchers may experience difficulty getting funding for their research. In addition, untenured researchers know that, when they seek promotion and tenure , it is likely that some of the evaluators will lack commitment to interdisciplinarity. They may fear that making

2065-578: The concepts lie in a number of ideas that resonate through modern discourse—the ideas of a unified science, general knowledge, synthesis and the integration of knowledge", while Giles Gunn says that Greek historians and dramatists took elements from other realms of knowledge (such as medicine or philosophy ) to further understand their own material. The building of Roman roads required men who understood surveying , material science , logistics and several other disciplines. Any broadminded humanist project involves interdisciplinarity, and history shows

2124-404: The disciplines, it becomes difficult to account for a given scholar or teacher's salary and time. During periods of budgetary contraction, the natural tendency to serve the primary constituency (i.e., students majoring in the traditional discipline) makes resources scarce for teaching and research comparatively far from the center of the discipline as traditionally understood. For these same reasons,

2183-501: The exhibition Pop Art poster Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? is attributed to "Richard Hamilton based on a design by McHale." According to Magda Cordell , "the material in that collage came from John McHale's files." McHale was a member of the Southern Illinois University Design Faculty. In the 1960s he was an Associate with Buckminster Fuller in

2242-423: The future of knowledge in post-industrial society . Researchers at the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity have made the distinction between philosophy 'of' and 'as' interdisciplinarity, the former identifying a new, discrete area within philosophy that raises epistemological and metaphysical questions about the status of interdisciplinary thinking, with the latter pointing toward a philosophical practice that

2301-634: The government or the Festival Office it had an agenda which was close to the official exhibitions of the Festival of Britain . McHale with Alloway curated a Collages and Objects exhibit at the ICA in 1954, where McHale first exhibited his formative Pop Art collages including the Transistor series, and his interactive gaming collage book Why I Took To The Washers In Luxury Flats . John McHale

2360-404: The introduction of new interdisciplinary programs is often resisted because it is perceived as a competition for diminishing funds. Due to these and other barriers, interdisciplinary research areas are strongly motivated to become disciplines themselves. If they succeed, they can establish their own research funding programs and make their own tenure and promotion decisions. In so doing, they lower

2419-399: The introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness , Ursula K. Le Guin distinguished futurists from novelists, writing of the study as the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurists. In her words, "a novelist's business is lying". A 2001 survey of 108 futurists found the following shared assumptions: The term has also been used to refer to popular electronic music acts who emerged in

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2478-503: The late 1970s, such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and The Human League . Interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, economics, etc. It is related to an interdiscipline or an interdisciplinary field, which

2537-410: The learned and the ignorant, those more or less the one, and those more or less the other. But your specialist cannot be brought in under either of these two categories. He is not learned, for he is formally ignorant of all that does not enter into his specialty; but neither is he ignorant, because he is 'a scientist,' and 'knows' very well his own tiny portion of the universe. We shall have to say that he

2596-560: The most important relevant facts." John McHale (artist) John McHale FRSA (August 19, 1922 – November 2, 1978) was a Scottish artist, art theorist, sociologist and future studies searcher. He was a member of the Independent Group , a British movement ( Institute of Contemporary Arts , London) that originated pop art which grew out of an interest in American mass culture and post– World War II technologies. He

2655-621: The past and fervently embrace speed, technology, and often violent change. There are a number of organizations that specialize in this field including the World Future Society, the Association of Professional Futurists (APF) and the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF). Visionary writers such as H. G. Wells , Jules Verne and Aldous Huxley were not in their day characterized as futurists. The term futurology in its contemporary sense

2714-443: The past two decades can be divided into "professional", "organizational", and "cultural" obstacles. An initial distinction should be made between interdisciplinary studies, which can be found spread across the academy today, and the study of interdisciplinarity, which involves a much smaller group of researchers. The former is instantiated in thousands of research centers across the US and the world. The latter has one US organization,

2773-687: The perspectives of two or more fields. The adjective interdisciplinary is most often used in educational circles when researchers from two or more disciplines pool their approaches and modify them so that they are better suited to the problem at hand, including the case of the team-taught course where students are required to understand a given subject in terms of multiple traditional disciplines. Interdisciplinary education fosters cognitive flexibility and prepares students to tackle complex, real-world problems by integrating knowledge from multiple fields. This approach emphasizes active learning, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills, equipping students with

2832-486: The philosophy and promise of interdisciplinarity in academic programs and professional practice, social scientists are increasingly interrogating academic discourses on interdisciplinarity, as well as how interdisciplinarity actually works—and does not—in practice. Some have shown, for example, that some interdisciplinary enterprises that aim to serve society can produce deleterious outcomes for which no one can be held to account. Since 1998, there has been an ascendancy in

2891-678: The risk of entry. Examples of former interdisciplinary research areas that have become disciplines, many of them named for their parent disciplines, include neuroscience , cybernetics , biochemistry and biomedical engineering . These new fields are occasionally referred to as "interdisciplines". On the other hand, even though interdisciplinary activities are now a focus of attention for institutions promoting learning and teaching, as well as organizational and social entities concerned with education, they are practically facing complex barriers, serious challenges and criticism. The most important obstacles and challenges faced by interdisciplinary activities in

2950-533: The same time, many thriving longstanding bachelor's in interdisciplinary studies programs in existence for 30 or more years, have been closed down, in spite of healthy enrollment. Examples include Arizona International (formerly part of the University of Arizona ), the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University , and the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Wayne State University ; others such as

3009-652: The social analysis of technology throughout most of the twentieth century. As a result, many social scientists with interests in technology have joined science, technology and society programs, which are typically staffed by scholars drawn from numerous disciplines. They may also arise from new research developments, such as nanotechnology , which cannot be addressed without combining the approaches of two or more disciplines. Examples include quantum information processing , an amalgamation of quantum physics and computer science , and bioinformatics , combining molecular biology with computer science. Sustainable development as

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3068-521: The term was in use in Independent Group discussions by mid-1950s. The critic Reyner Banham called John McHale the "scholar-artist, this 'Father of Pop'". Alloway in his Artforum article on "Pop art Since 1949" notes that "with reference to pop art that could be demonstrated ... John McHale made collages in 1955 out of the then-fresh postwar color printed American magazines." McHale's works included fine arts, graphics, exhibition design, television, film and general consultancy to organisations in

3127-439: The traditional discipline makes the tenure decisions, new interdisciplinary faculty will be hesitant to commit themselves fully to interdisciplinary work. Other barriers include the generally disciplinary orientation of most scholarly journals, leading to the perception, if not the fact, that interdisciplinary research is hard to publish. In addition, since traditional budgetary practices at most universities channel resources through

3186-478: The value of interdisciplinary research and teaching and a growth in the number of bachelor's degrees awarded at U.S. universities classified as multi- or interdisciplinary studies. The number of interdisciplinary bachelor's degrees awarded annually rose from 7,000 in 1973 to 30,000 a year by 2005 according to data from the National Center of Educational Statistics (NECS). In addition, educational leaders from

3245-784: Was awarded a scholarship to study with Josef Albers at the Design Department of Yale University in August 1955, and returned to London in June 1956. He then participated in the 1956 exhibition This Is Tomorrow at the Whitechapel Art Gallery , where he supplied a good deal of the Pop Art visual material (projectors, gramophone motors, film posters and probably the juke box were supplied by Frank Cordell ). Jeremy Hunt states in his article on 'This Is Tomorrow' that

3304-611: Was born in Maryhill , Glasgow , Scotland. He was educated in the United Kingdom and the United States, with a PhD in sociology. After spending a year at Yale University in 1955–1956, he moved definitively to the US in 1962 to work with the architect Buckminster Fuller on ecological issues and environmental sustainability. He and his wife, the artist Magda Cordell , then founded their own future studies organization,

3363-699: Was first coined in the mid‑1940s by the German Professor Ossip K. Flechtheim , who proposed a new science of probability. Flechtheim argued that even if systematic forecasting did no more than unveil the subset of statistically highly probable processes of change and charted their advance, it would still be of crucial social value. In the mid‑1940s the first professional "futurist" consulting institutions like RAND and SRI began to engage in long-range planning, systematic trend watching, scenario development, and visioning, at first under World War II military and government contract and, beginning in

3422-484: Was founded in 2008 but is closed as of 1 September 2014, the result of administrative decisions at the University of North Texas. An interdisciplinary study is an academic program or process seeking to synthesize broad perspectives , knowledge, skills, interconnections, and epistemology in an educational setting. Interdisciplinary programs may be founded in order to facilitate the study of subjects which have some coherence, but which cannot be adequately understood from

3481-985: Was taught by the late Alvin Toffler at the New School in 1966. More generally, the label includes such disparate lay, professional, and academic groups as visionaries, foresight consultants, corporate strategists, policy analysts, cultural critics, planners, marketers, forecasters, prediction market developers, roadmappers, operations researchers, investment managers, actuaries , and other risk analyzers, and future-oriented individuals educated in every academic discipline, including anthropology, complexity studies , computer science , economics, engineering, urban design , evolutionary biology , history, management, mathematics, philosophy, physical sciences, political science, psychology, sociology, systems theory , technology studies, trend analysis, and other disciplines. "Futurology"—or "futures studies", futures research, and foresight—can be summarized as being concerned with "three P's and

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