Theatrical Research and the Limits of Interdisciplinarity

: The present study aims to abandon the unconditional excitement related to interdisciplinarity and highlight a series of limits and risks proposed by the interdisciplinary methods, as those limits and risks reflect themselves in the research of the theatre field. We are concerned, inter alia, by the different attitudes towards interdisciplinarity, as can be seen in the Western space - much more reserved, cautious – compared to the Eastern one, where we seem to witness a glorious time for the concept in question. We also insist on the origins of the interdisciplinary practices from the first half of the Twentieth Century and on the profound connection they have with the disappearance of the systemic philosophies and with the development of scientism. The study offers a series of examples which, as a Ph.D. coordinator, one considers relevant for what they, ultimately, support in this matter: the necessity of a cautious, lucid, and critical attitude. The fragility of prior documentations of those who venture into other fields, the risks of becoming superficial, the dictatorship of the approximate, the temptation of the manipulation – these are only a couple of the topics we address. The conclusions also refer to the imperative to not lose one's scientific identity, in the way that the philosopher Thomas Khun used this syntagm.