At 12:01 -0500 6/11/02, Matt wrote:

My contribution is, however, to ask if there is value in shifting the debate away from the noun, discipline, to the verb 'to discipline' (obviously following Foucault here)? I think that disciplines are defined, mostly, by the processes and actions which maintain and perpetuate them, rather than by the boundaries or terrain which they enclose. I would assert that the difficulty for transdisciplinary scholars, such as found in areas of study such as Internet Studies, is not in traversing the ground, nor crossing the borders, of the many disciplines which they might encounter; rather, the difficulty is one of connection with and deep understanding of processes.

well put. i also think the key thing that needs to be acknowledged in this discussion is we are not talking about what makes a discipline but (to follow Foucault and i imagine Derrida), more particularly how the discipline is disciplined. ie a discipline is only constituted by the act that disciplines it. that's where the debates and arguments (the power) lies. cheers adrian miles -- + lecturer in new media and cinema studies [http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/vlog] + interactive desktop video developer [http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/] + hypertext rmit [http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au] + InterMedia:UiB. university of bergen [http://www.intermedia.uib.no]