The Rhetoric of Scientific Revolutions. Review of two special issues of Social Epistemology on interdisciplinarity, by Steve Hutkins, The Gallatin School, New York University. Social Epistemology is "a journal of knowledge, culture and policy," under the executive editorship of Steve Fuller of the Sociology Department at the University of Durham in the UK. Its policy statement says that SE is "committed to both examining and exhibiting the social structure of knowledge," and it encourages interdisciplinary work such as syntheses that survey the literature of several different disciplines. This review examines two special issues of SE that address the theme of interdisciplinarity directly.

Outside the Lines: Issues in Interdisciplinary Research. A review of Outside the Lines: Issues in Interdisciplinary Research, Liora Salter and Alison Hearn. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996. Reviewed by Cheryl Rose Jacobsen, Associate Professor/Chair of the Department of History, Wartburg College. Outside the Lines, begins with two chapters devoted to disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. The middle four chapters provide case study discussions by twelve contributors on their own experience, practice, and evaluation of interdisciplinary research. The concluding chapters reprise the issues of both theoretical and practical sections and introduce yet more problems posed by interdisciplinarity's "Changing the Map" and "Charting New Territories" in the production of knowledge..

Summer Scholarships.

AIS Member News

Volume 19, Number 3, October, 1997

The Worth of a Child. (The Worth of a Child by Thomas H. Murray. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996) 207 pages. Reviewed by Thomas D. Paxson, Jr., Sothern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Thomas H. Murray explains, in the preface, that he was led to write this intriguing book as a result of realizing that he was much more satisfied by the results of his study of a problem in bioethics if he "misbehaved" and first plunged into the history, sociology, or anthropology of a problem, than if he appealed immediately to the tools of bioethics. The book functions on two levels: it presents carefully considered and insightful discussions of contemporary moral issues involving children and reproductive practices and it also discusses the practice of moral philosophy in general, criticizing traditional (Western) ethical theory and offering instead a contextual approach giving careful attention to tradition. The metaphor of warp and woof in a tapestry guides explicitly the reflections on moral reasoning in chapters 1 and 8 that begin and conclude this work, as well as implicitly the practice of moral reasoning exemplified in the consideration of particular moral issues (chapters 2 through 7). This review will focus on Murray's use of the metaphors of tapestry and web and their significance for interdisciplinary studies in general.

Conceptual Foundations for Multidisciplinary Thinking. (Conceptual Foundations for Multidisciplinary Thinking. by Stephen Jay Kline. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995) 337 pages. Reviewed by Wavell Fogleman, Professor of Chemistry, Plymouth State College, New Hampshire. For the bulk of this book Stephen Jay Kline provides theoretical arguments for the necessity of multidisciplinary discourse to achieve best understanding of the vital concerns of humankind. At the conclusion he presses for structures within universities which would be charged with creating and overseeing requirements in multidisciplinary discourse. In a sense, members of this forum are likely to find much of what he has to say to be preaching to the converted. Nevertheless, there are specific points which he makes strongly which we can all do well to consider.

Kline, trained in the discipline of mechanical engineering, was one of the founders of the Program in Science, Technology and Society at Stanford University. Much of the content of the book arose from lecture notes in courses Kline taught in that program.

Faculty Positions. Ohio University Interdisciplinary Fine Arts Historian/Educator.

Conferences/Symposiums.

• AGLSP Annual Conference, October 30 - November 1, 1997, Philadelphia, PA. "Graduate Liberal Studies and the Changing Academy".
• 19th Annual AIS Conference, October 23 - 26, 1997, Appalachian State University. "Renewing Practices and Transforming Experiences in Integrative Studies.

Volume 19, Number 4, December, 1997

Navigating Among The Disciplines. (Special issue of Library Trends 45:2 Fall 1996. Navigating Among the Disciplines: The Library and Interdisciplinary Inquiry edited by Carole L. Palmer, University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences) pp. 129-366. Reviewed by Robert M. Bender, Professor of English and Women Studies, University of Missouri-Columbia. Navigating Among the Disciplines: The Library and Interdisciplinary Inquiry brings together a variety of perspectives in an examination of the present state of thinking about how libraries serve interdisciplinary needs, and how they will need to be organized in the future to facilitate the growth of specific areas of interdisciplinary investigation as well as the growing study of interdisciplinarity itself. The twelve contributors to this volume include a number of scholars known for their work in the conceptualization of interdisciplinary studies--Julie Thompson Klein, Robert Pahre and Mattei Dogan--as well as library and information science professionals. Together, and in varying degrees, these authors address and define the analytical framework within which knowledge production takes place, with an emphasis on the interdisciplinary nature of such production, how libraries facilitate the use of interdisciplinary information, as well as specific integrative information techniques now available, the structural consequence of integration, and the accompanying implications for library administration.

• The College of the Holy Cross, Assistant Director, Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies.
• Arizona State University, Lecturer, Office of Senior Vice President and Provost. Division of Undergraduate Academic Services/Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies.
• University of California San Diego, Assistant Professor, Department of Cognitive Science.

• Ninth International Conference on College Teaching and Learning, April 15-18, 1998, Radisson Riverwalk Hotel, Jacksonville, FL. "Teaching, Learning & Technology: A Global Search for Innovative Learning Strategies".
• The Collaboration for the Advancement of COllege Teaching and Learning, Winter 1998 Faculty Development Conference, February 19-20, 1998, Radisson Hoel South, Bloomington, MN, "Teaching Key Concepts Within and Across Disciplines".
• Cirla '98 at Augustana University College, May 7-10, 1998, The Banff Centre for Conferences, Banff, Alberta, Canada, "Generating Suprises: The Post/Disciplinary University".
• First Graduate Student Conference, University of Western Ontario, January 30-31, 1998, "Culture, Community, Identity".
• Working Conference on Interdisciplinary Studies: New intellectual and institutional frameworks". Sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities in collaboration with AIS.
• Law and Society Association, Annual Meeting, June 4-7, 1998, Snowmass Village, Aspen, CO.
• Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Conference, Faculty Conference on Interdisciplinary Research in Teaching, Drury College, February 6-7,1998.

• 20th Annual AIS Conference, October 8-11, 1998, Wayne State University, "integrative studies, Building Bridges across Disciplines and Cultures".
• Fifth Annual Conference, Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World, Intersubjectivity: Self, Other and Lifeworld, August 9-15, 1998, Estes Park, CO.
• Institute for Liberal Studies Ninth Interdisciplinary Conference on Science and Culture, April 2-4, 1998, Kentucky State University.

• Philosophical Explorations, An International Journal for the Philosophy of Mind and Action