writing across boundaries

1. writing across boundaries an ESRC-funded project for thinking and writing about writing and thinking COMPONENTS OF THE TALK • Introduction • Exploration • Evaluation • Application

2. writing across boundaries http://www.dur.ac.uk/writingacrossboundaries/ a website for reflecting on writing

3. the language of a discipline features the communication of an exclusive community a liberation from commonsense BUT a constraint from “pure reason” the boundary markers of a “chosen people”

4. some aspects of writing writing as “deskwork”, a continuation of research AS PROCESS its mutuality with data-work AS STRUCTURE the creation of a narrative AS OUTCOME the representation of sense-experience

5. the cycle of understanding

6. foundations of a discipline

7. why writing across boundaries might have intellectual value HOME OR PRISON ? academic disciplines as territories with underlying values and unique languages, with institutional, economic, technical and personal boundaries. DISCIPLINE AS NURTURE membership of a cultural community shaped bycertain patterns ofbehaviours, relationships and concepts THE ENVIRONMENT OF INTELLECTUAL DEBATE thought and writing as a socio-cultural environment in which participants transform themselves and their relationships; writing as a multiple mode of thought, action and emotion

8. aspects of writing re-visited • drafting, plotting, ordering information • the data-theory relationship • narrative, rhetoric and representation • “hints and tips” on writing (not just “writing up” your data)

9. ordering information • The conventions of presentation • The jargon of the discipline • The politico-cultural constraints and values • Methodology and supporting technologies • The mundanity or creativity of the author

10. Narrative as the representation of events Elements of: • The data • The plot • The authorial identity • The reader Narrative as a complex relation with the world and our shared selves

11. Some remarks on representation • What is representation in writing? • Modes in representation • The function of theory in representation(s) • Styles and forms in representation

12. The function of creativity Writing as: • Preparation • Incubation • Insight • Verification See Wallas (1926)

13. writing across boundaries again Creative (v) Formulaic • The generation of new concepts • The application of old concepts to fresh data • Importing concepts from other disciplines into new contexts and applications

14. Revisionism • Revisionist methodologies • Revisionist language • The Conflict of the Faculties (1798), Foucault and Kant • Post disciplinarity in response to new problems