shouldn’t have this kind of work because we can’t judge it. We can’t
tell whether it’s good or bad.’ And that seems to me a terrible reason
to fire someone.” As in tenure decisions, the challenge of fairly evalu-
ating interdisciplinary proposals is not helped by the fact that typi-
cally no panelist has mastered all the knowledge needed to assess
competently all of their aspects.^15 Sometimes no consensus emerges
about whose disciplinary sovereignty should be deferred to, which
means that evaluating interdisciplinary research can be an especially
risky venture.
Interdisciplinarity often brings about a broadening and multipli-
cation of evaluation criteria, which makes both individual judgment
and group agreement much more difficult. The same English profes-
sor quoted earlier notes that in her field, the traditional criteria used
with regard to close reading is whether the author can perform a
“subtle, accurate reading” of a sonnet, for instance. In the case of in-
terdisciplinary work, the criteria become whether the argument is
“plausible, persuasive, how is evidence used.” And although the use
of evidence is a constant, it is often difficult or impossible for panel-
ists to know whether an applicant is proposing to use the most ap-
propriate evidence available. Only those extremely familiar with the
specific case are in a position to evaluate this aspect—and even
across academia in general, the number of such competent judges is
likely to be very small. This same English professor, whose scholar-
ship is well known and highly regarded, illustrates the dilemma by
describing her own experience undertaking an interdisciplinary re-
search project:
You take your theoretical frame from some existing source. If
you’re writing about sexuality, you would follow the rules laid
down by Foucault, so that it would be possible to judge whether
someone was pursuing a Foucaultian reading in a proper way.
[However], I felt that I certainly knew more about these journalis-Considering Interdisciplinarity and Diversity / 209