I should probably start off by
apologizing for the fact that, by the
time this vlog goes out, I think it will
be about three days late. And that's
largely because last week I had a real
productive spurt of momentum with a bit of
writing that I'm currently doing and, as
that doesn't happen particularly often,
or certainly not as often as I'd like it
to, I thought it best to not interrupt
that. But that did mean that I got a
vital piece of work finished, a little
bit of background writing that I've been
working on for ages and it's
taken me a little while to get my head
around. And so that's really, really
positive. So, what I was going to talk
about on Friday, and what I am now going
to talk about now, is being
interdisciplinary. So, for those of you
that might not be aware, a piece of
research is described as
interdisciplinary when it sits between
two fields. So, for example, my PhD
research is on the representation of
regional English cities in contemporary
theatre. So, although I sit within the
Department of Drama at the University,
and theatre is very much my focus,
because I'm looking at how
geography and cities and spatiality are
represented within theatre, I also have
to do a lot of reading around geography.
Now, since I became aware that this is a
thing, I've actually found a lot of
research within art or within
culture more generally does tend to sit
within an interdisciplinary space.
And I think, as we move forward,
academia generally is getting less and
less het up about how we
separate out different bits of research
into subjects or fields and actually
embracing the nature of taking in more
than one field in a particular piece of
research. Particularly bits of work that
are on representation, like I look at,
whether that's within media or whether
it's within pieces of art or pieces
of culture, are almost definitely going
to be interdisciplinary because
naturally a piece of research that is
about representation of something in
something else will have to look at some
of the issues and research surrounding
the thing that's being represented as
well as the form that it's being
represented in. Just as I look at all the
research surrounding regional cities and
then I look at research surrounding
dramaturgy and theatre and then
piece all
that together. I've certainly found the
fact that my research is
interdisciplinary to be really quite fun,
because, as well as researching theatre
and continuing that work, it's also given
me the opportunity to embrace an entire
new field that I previously hadn't read an
awful lot about. But there comes with
that a certain challenge in that I tend
to find learning new things really,
really exciting; I suppose that's
something about why I ended up doing a PhD
in the first place. But I do often find
myself drawn a little bit too much into
the geography field and I can spend
a couple of weeks reading very
intensely about regional cities and
actually find I loose track of my
theatre research a little bit. And,
actually, when doing a bit of
interdisciplinary research the feeling
that I'm getting is that it's very much
key to make sure you're always keeping
your feet in both fields and not finding
yourself wandering off towards one or
the other. I know I tend to wander off
into the geographyi field because I feel
like know quite a lot of the theatre
field and that, actually, it's quite
exciting to wander off into that
completely new area of research to me.
But, occasionally, I have to remind myself
that I don't know everything within the
theatre field and actually there is an
awful lot in there that I still need to
read that's going to be pertinent to my
research. In many ways it often feels
like a bit of a tug of war, on one hand
of which I've got theatre and on the other
hand of which I've got geography
and urban studies and they're constantly
pulling me in either direction and the
real key, I think, is to make sure you
stay on that line in between. Another
challenge is that you often have something
completely new terminologies and new
methodologies for research and that,
again, is really exciting but can be a
real challenge when you're suddenly
trying to engage at a PhD level in some
research in a completely new field. But,
ultimately, I find it really, really
enjoyable and I'd certainly suggest that
anyone that's thinking about doing a bit
of research that to be able to take in a
completely new field is actually much
less daunting than you'd imagine and is
actually quite exciting. I've certainly
not completely mastered this myself
though,
so if anyone has any advice for doing
any interdisciplinary research and how
to make sure that you're staying within
both fields at the same time
then please do let me know. I'm going to
try and catch up on my schedule, I've
done really well for ten weeks so
hopefully there'll be a new video out
towards the end of this week as well.
Thanks very much and have a great week!