This article features a conversation on the occasion of a May 2018 "Festschrift" in "Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies" to honor the work of William Newell, between Newell and P. Sven Arvidson. William Newell is Emeritus Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University, where he taught interdisciplinary courses full…

This article suggests that the arts and humanities are in the midst of an interdisciplinary turn. This turn is a reaction to two problems: the transformation of universities in the twenty-first century and the challenges posed by postmodernism. The interdisciplinary turn, as identified here, is toward critical thinking in teaching and learning and…