IDS Major
BECOMING AN IDS MAJOR
interdisciplinary studies in culture and society
A Major to Meet your Intellectual Passion
“Interdisciplinarity is always transformative in some way, producing new forms of knowledge in its engagement with discrete disciplines”
—Joseph Moran, Interdisciplinarity
Interdisciplinary Studies in Culture and Society is the only major at Emory University that allows students to structure their own program of study around a field of interests that they themselves define. It is designed for independently minded students who wish to study culture and society but whose interests are broader than those accommodated by a single discipline. As part of the major, students are permitted to take courses in a number of departments, provided they meet appropriate departmental prerequisites. Please click here for a list of requirements.
Interdisciplinary Studies in Culture and Society is the only major at Emory University that allows students to structure their own program of study around a field of interests that they themselves define, in line with one of the following IDS concentrations. The IDS major is designed for independently minded students who wish to study culture and society but whose interests are broader than those accommodated by a single discipline. As part of the major, students are permitted to take courses in a number of departments, provided they meet appropriate departmental prerequisites. Students receive close supervision from the DUS and other faculty advisors throughout their career as an IDS major.
The Concentrations within the IDS major guide students whose intellectual interests fall outside or between existing fields and disciplines as they develop rigorous, individualized programs of study. All IDS majors are trained in the interdisciplinary study of culture and society. All demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language and learn through our framing courses to attend to the historical, cultural, and disciplinary construction of knowledge. Building on this foundation, IDS Majors use Concentration Courses to specialize in one of the diverse forms of interdisciplinary inquiry represented in the ILA.
IDS Concentrations and Consulting Faculty
Culture, Society and Public Scholarship
Incorporates scholarly or theoretical understandings into some form of public event, intervention, or interaction—examples might include internships; study of or work in museums; exploration of sites of memory, monuments, or socially significant landscapes; planning or study of conferences or exhibits; community outreach and engaged learning
Consulting ILA faculty: Goodstein, White, Bay, Karp
Intercultural Studies
International in focus, specifically compares two or more cultures through a study of literature, religion, philosophy, history, or other culturally reflective evidence; among other possibilities, students can draw on strong IDS ties with European Studies, Jewish Studies, Russian and East Asian Studies, or with faculty working on developmental or area studies
Consulting ILA faculty: Jackson, Nickerson, Bammer
Interdisciplinary Humanities and Critical Studies
Focused on literary, social, and cultural theory and methodology that explores intersections between philosophy, literature, sociology, psychoanalysis or related fields, as exemplified in authors such as Foucault, Simmel, Beaudrillard, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Plato, or Sophocles, among many others
Consulting ILA faculty: Goodstein, Wakefield, Corrigan
Race and Difference Studies
Studies the history, philosophy, literature, or social, medical, or other constructions surrounding sexuality, gender, race, and other operative forms of difference. Students integrate their major coursework into distinctive initiatives at Emory on race and difference, such as the Psychoanalytic Studies Program, Transforming Community Project, Race and Difference Initiative of the Strategic Plan, the James Weldon Johnston Institute, the Office of University and Community Partnerships, and the African American Studies, Women’s Studies departments, among others
Consulting ILA faculty: Wallace-Sanders, Byrd, Moon
Science and Society
Explores the intersections between natural sciences, and the humanities and social sciences—e.g. history and philosophy of medicine and disease; sustainability; bioethics; diseases and diagnoses in literature; cultural differences in medicine (with links to Emory-Tibet Partnership); gender and science; religion and science; etc.
Consulting ILA faculty: Eisen, Gilman, Kushner
Visual Studies and Contemporary Culture
Examination of visual, musical, or other artistic media with a strong critical and theoretical component, possibly including dimensions of performance; methodologies could include (but are not limited to) film ethnography and anthropology, digital media and archives, media literacy, and the intersections of visual and other aesthetic or electronic media with literature, history, philosophy, and race and gender studies.
Consulting ILA faculty: Grimshaw, Tullos, Wallace-Sanders
For more details, contact Ruby Buggs, or click here for the IDS handbook.
Last modified on: 10/24/2011