Collectivities, in brief, is a term describing the intellectual and creative potential of groups. Collectivities then mark a position in the connection between disciplinary fields; a position that is simultaneously productive of new knowledge and new politics. In Collectivities: Politics at the Intersections of Disciplines Robert Carley looks at the classical ideas and theorists that have influenced interdisciplinary work in the humanistic and social-scientific disciplines as well as contemporary cases of interdisciplinary meeting points, specifically cultural studies, Chicana/o studies and radical sociology (e.g. critical, liberation, public, and Marxist approaches). He discusses the intellectual, creative, and political potential of these groupings. Noting that interdisciplinary groups often come together to address political or social problems, Carley provides an analysis of these groupings as well as ways of understanding their work. He suggests that we might understand interdisciplinarity as more than merely a constellation of scholarly fields. By looking at the political contexts that inform our understanding of as well as the approaches of interdisciplinary groups Collectivities suggests some new ways to think about the production of knowledge when it occurs between disciplines.

Robert Carley is assistant professor of sociology at Wright State University.