Introduction: Writing the Liberal Arts and Sciences

Abstract

This book was written by authors from the fields of literary studies, criminology, physics, linguistics, political science, medicine, philosophy, clinical psychology, mathematics, art history, law, astrophysics, history, anthropology, and religious studies. It is the written outcome of a form of collegial storytelling among faculty members working in the liberal arts and sciences setting of University College Utrecht, the Netherlands. Weekly lunchtime gatherings brought together academics from these widely differing fields, with equally diverse personal journeys, to sample other fields of knowledge. There was a combined sense of curiosity about the content of these other fields and those in them; about different ways of approaching and understanding the world; and about the possibility of being able to ask questions outside one’s comfort zone. This interest was fostered by working together in a multidisciplinary liberal arts and sciences college; sharing offices and other facilities with colleagues from completely different fields meant that we were used to having chats across disciplinary boundaries, probably more so than our colleagues in monodisciplinary departments. We wanted to see where these conversations would lead if channelled into written form. The willingness to think beyond the boundaries of a given field when approaching a particular phenomenon proved stimulating as a writing experiment: critical feedback on content and style from a diverse body of faculty members was unprecedented. We began to wonder whether we could write about some aspect of our respective fields of knowledge not just for ourselves but also for external audiences. We imagined our readers as potential liberal arts and sciences students, but also as interested peers and lay people. As we proceeded, the subjects we wrote about changed and evolved. The many-faceted process of transformation from the spoken to the written word reflects the effort of moving beyond disciplinary jargon. The interdisciplinary in this respect is a particular kind of scholarly attitude built upon curiosity and open-endedness: we did not know the outcome in advance, but allowed our voices to emerge through a process that stretched over several years.