Introduction

The introductory chapter explains the purpose of the book. It discusses the relevance of examples from the interdisciplinary research practice across the scholarly life cycle in contrast to short-term projects. It describes the book’s ambition to illustrate how such prolonged engagement with interdisciplinarity affects the way in which scholars work and the type of insights it may generate over time. This chapter also explicates the book’s structure, with sections on theory, methods, and collaboration. Finally, in dialogue with existing literature on interdisciplinarity, it shows three take-away lessons: the significance of the redefinition of subjects, concepts, hierarchies, and even entire fields; the importance of curated curiosity; and the need for sustained collaboration in making interdisciplinarity research a valuable undertaking.