CONTEMPORARY INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES AND THE IDEOLOGY OF NEOLIBERAL EXPANSION

Ginsberg proposes a sustained analysis of interdisciplinary studies, the contemporary continuation of area studies in its updated, modified, taylorized and streamlined form. This streamlining of area studies into interdisciplinary studies initially entailed the field's development into a unitary, if multi-pronged discipline following the example of early, experimental programs at Wayne State University, Appalachian State University, Norfolk State University, and New York University that often ran ideologically counter to area studies' Cold War imperatives. These early, general education and individualized studies programs often promoted libertarian understandings of education and academic study and were not always granted full departmental status within their institutions. Like area studies programs, interdisciplinary studies programs are based primarily in the humanities and social sciences rather than in the hard sciences-and their lesser funding is partly reflected by that fact. As Ginsberg discusses, their discursive orientation orientation and epistemological scope are much broader and far-reaching than those of their area studies predecessors.