Twenty-second International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In the first part of this paper, I review Minati and Collen’s argument that “trans-disciplinarity” is a phase of knowledge through which human beings work to synthesize a collection of details “giving them meaning and harmony within a global view.” I then show how the scholarship devoted to the Grateful Dead is an example of transdisciplinary knowledge. Grateful Dead Studies originated in conferences where different scholars from different disciplines presented papers with varying foci reflecting the presenter’s specific discipline. At these conferences, the authors interacted with each other and engaged in interdisciplinary discussions, that is, they were participating in a “dialogue between and across disciplines.” Some of these disciplines were in the Humanities, but not all. The Social Sciences as well as disciplines as disparate as law, economics, and even acoustics and technology were also represented. Although the discussions among Grateful Dead scholars seemed to be a multidisciplinary one, the focus of our research was no longer about the particular objects delineated by our specific disciplines. Now, we were engaged, as Minati and Collen argued, in the project of synthesizing the collection of details culled from the individual studies about specific aspects of the Grateful Dead. This synthesis generated a new object of study incorporating the entire array of details of the Grateful Dead phenomenon that is the object of a transdisciplinary study. And so, Grateful Dead Studies can be used as model illustrating Minati and Collen’s argument about the formation of a new transdisciplinary domain of knowledge.