‘Without any reason for being’

The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis was in many ways the end of an era: the last World’s Fair of the kind characteristic of the 19th century. At the same time, the fair reflected the nascent transfer of economic, political, cultural and scientific power from Europe to America in the 20th century. Among the centrepieces of the expo was the ‘Congress for Arts and Sciences’ organized by Hugo Munsterberg. The German émigré professor made it his mission to reject the randomness of subjects evident at the 1900 Paris Exposition, which appeared scattered ‘without any reason for being.’ Munsterberg determined to organize the plan of the Congress to reveal the ‘neglected idea of the unity of truth.’ After publishing his schema, John Dewey heavily criticized the arrogance and impossibility of such a classification of ‘Truth.’ The resulting debate in popular American magazines reveals the extent to which, in this era of ‘public’ science, when research was presented at expos alongside feats of athletic strength and exotic human captives, the rigid disciplinarity so characteristic of modern American knowledge was still in flux. Relating the controversy to Norbert Elias’s sociology of knowledge, the chapter articulates a distinction between ‘strong interdisciplinarity’ and the ‘weak interdisciplinarity’ currently prevailing within contemporary academic culture. A tentative analysis of ongoing issues relating to academic freedom and disciplinarity is conducted to suggest that without a strong interdisciplinary framework integrating knowledge from institutionalized ‘studies’ areas – interdisciplines – within reconstructed disciplines, the practical effects of these critical discourses may undermine the legitimacy and authority of both disciplines and interdisciplines, especially within the humanities and social sciences.