Interdisciplinary Work: Literature, Translation, Art

My friend Zarko Radakovic, about whom I've written here before, is working on a fascinating interdisciplinary project with an Austrian novelist named Peter Handke (his novel "The Goalies Anxiety at the Penalty Kick" is the source of this blog's name) and a Serbian artist who works in Cologne, Germany named Nina Pops.

It starts with Peter Handke's novel called "Bildverlust," or The Loss of Images. It continues as Zarko translates the novel into Serbo-Croatian. And it finds another dimension as Nina Pops creates a visual image in response to a passage of the translation.

The translation in Zarko's handwriting and the painting work together, word-image and visual image, to create a new work.

I find the whole thing provocative and inspiring.

Subtle Beauty

Disciplinary nodes

Lyn and I picked these dry plants on the San Raphael Swell. Besides their simple beauty, they work as a metaphor for me of interdisciplinary work.

The swellings are those biology or music or history emphases, those disciplines where we gain depth of focus and the tools we need to investigate whatever problem or question we're interested in. The stems between the swellings are the connections without which we remain in disciplinary isolation.

And the snowy ground behind them?

I think I'll just let the metaphor rest.

For an interesting look at recent thinking on interdisciplinary studies, see
http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-wi08/le-wi08_Inter_Studies.cfm

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