This article analyzes the cognitive structures and dynamics of a form of scientific discipline that differs importantly both from the disciplinary format of the 19th-century university system, and from the profile proposed by much postmodern interdisciplinary (anti-disciplinary) discussion. This recent form of discipline, here termed the ‘new disciplinarity’, is a product of the increasing complexity of scientific knowledge and activity. The approach privileges cognition. It emphasizes the concepts of disciplinary referent, robust boundaries, ‘borderland’, combinatorials and projects. It suggests that the new disciplinarity is highly elastic and that it is a spawning-ground for new disciplines.
AbbottA (1995) Things of boundaries. Social Research62(4): 857–882.
2.
AbbottA (2001) Chaos of Disciplines. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.
3.
Abir-AmPG (1975) The Double Helix: A Historical Analysis of Uniqueness in a Transdisciplinary Discovery. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University.
4.
Abir-AmPG (2006) Molecular biology and its recent historiography: A transnational quest for the ‘big picture’. History of Science44: 95–118.
5.
Ben-DavidJ (1960) Roles and innovations in medicine. American Journal of Sociology65: 557–568.
6.
Ben-DavidJ (1971) The Scientist’s Role in Society: A Comparative Study. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
7.
BensaudeB (1993) Lavoisier: Mémoires d’une révolution. Paris: Flammarion.
8.
Bensaude-VincentB (2008) Matière à Penser: Essais d’histoire et de philosophie de la chimie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris Ouest.
9.
Bensaude-VincentB (2009) Les Vertiges de la Technoscience: Façonner le monde atome par atome. Paris: La Découverte.
10.
Bensaude-VincentBStengersI (1993) Histoire de la Chimie. Paris: La Découverte.
11.
BohrN (1933) Light and life. Nature133: 421–423.
12.
BourdieuP (1984) Homo Academicus. Paris: Minuit.
13.
BourdieuP (2001) Science de la Science et Réflexivité. Paris: Raisons d’Agir.
14.
CalvertJ (2006) What’s special about basic research?Science, Technology and Human Values31(2): 199–220.
15.
CharleC (2004) Patterns: A History of the University in Europe. In: RüeggW (ed.) Universities in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III. New York: Cambridge University Press, 35–80.
16.
CraneD (1972) Invisible Colleges: Diffusion of Knowledge in Scientific Communities. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.
17.
Critical Inquiry (2009) 35 (August).
18.
De Solla PriceD (1963) Little Science, Big Science. New York: Columbia University Press.
19.
DosiG. (2006) The relationships between science, technologies and their industrial exploitation: An illustration through the myths and realities of the so-called ‘European Paradox’. Research Policy35: 1450–1464.
20.
EspelandWStevensM (1998) Commensuration as a social process. Annual Review of Sociology24: 313–343.
21.
FabianiJ-L (2006) A Quoi Sert la Notion de Discipline?Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.
22.
FrodemanRThompson-KleinJMitchamC (2010) The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
23.
GalisonP (1997) Image of Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
24.
GibbonsMLimogesCNowotnyH. (1994) The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. London: Sage.
25.
GingrasY (1991) Physics and the Rise of Scientific Research in Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
26.
HoddesonLBraunETeichmannJ (eds) (1992) Out of the Crystal Maze: Chapters from the History of Solid-state Physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
27.
HottoisG (2006) La technoscience: de l’origine du mot à ses usages actuels. Recherche en Soins Infirmiers86: 24–32.
28.
JoergesBShinnT (eds) (2001) Instrumentation: Between Science, State, and Industry. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
29.
KayLE (1993) The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology. New York: Oxford University Press.
30.
KohlerRE (2002) Landscapes and Labscapes: Exploring the Lab–Field Border in Biology. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.
31.
KreimerP (1999) L’Universel et le Contexte dans la Recherche Scientifique. Lille: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
32.
KueppersJLehnardJShinnT (eds) (2006) Simulation: Pragmatic Construction of Reality. Dordrecht: Springer.
33.
LakatosI (1977) The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
34.
LakatosI (1978) Mathematics, Science and Epistemology: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
35.
LamontMMallardGGuetzkowJ (2006) Beyond blind faith: Overcoming the obstacles to interdisciplinary evaluation. Research Evaluation15(1): 43–55.
36.
LemaineG. (1976) Perspectives on the Emergence of Scientific Disciplines. Paris: Mouton.
37.
LeydesdorffLPingZhou (2007) Nanotechnology as a field of science: Its delineation in terms of journals and patents. Scientometrics70(3): 693–713.
38.
McCrayWP (2005) Will small be beautiful? Making policies for our nanotech future. History and Technology21(2): 177–203.
39.
McCrayWP (2009) From lab to iPod: A story of discovery and commercialization in the post-cold-war era technology and culture. Technology and Culture50(1): 57–81.
40.
McEvoyJ (2001) Disciplinary Identity and the Chemical Revolution, 8th Conference on the History of Chemistry. (Accessed on the Internet: 1 April 2010)
41.
MarcovichAShinnT (2010) Socio/intellectual patterns in nanoscale research: Feynman Nanotechnology Prize laureates, 1993–2007. Social Science Information49(4): 1–24.
42.
MarcovichAShinnT (2011) Cognitive, instrumental and institutional origins of nanoscale research: The place of biology. In: CarrierMNordmannA (eds) Science in the Context of Application: Methodological Change, Conceptual Transformation, Cultural Reorientation. Dordrecht: Springer, 221–245.
43.
MarcovichAShinnT (forthcoming) Instrument research, tools and the knowledge enterprise – 1999/2009: Birth and development of dip-pen nanolithography. Science, Technology, and Human Values36(6).
44.
MayrE (2004) What Makes Biology Unique? Considerations on the Autonomy of a Scientific Discipline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
45.
MeyerMPerssonO (1998) Nanotechnology–interdisciplinarity, patterns of collaboration and differences in application. Scientometrics42(2): 195–205.
46.
MichaletXPinaudFFBentolilaLA. (2005) Quantum dots for live cells, in-vivo imaging. Science307(5709): 538–544.
47.
ModyC (2006) Corporations, universities, and instrumental communities: Commercializing probe microscopy, 1981–1996. Technology and Culture47: 56–80.
48.
MorangeM (2003) Historie de la Biologie Moléculaire. Paris: La Découverte.
49.
MullinsN (1972) Development of a scientific specialty – phage group and origins of molecular biology. Minerva10(1): 51–82.
50.
NowotnyHScottPGibbonsM (2001) Re-Thinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty. Oxford: Polity.
51.
PoserH (1998) Connections and disconnections between scientific disciplines. Philosophia Naturalis35(1): 3–21. (Papers presented at the colloquium ‘Models, Theories and Disunity in Physics’, Berlin, 5 June 1996)
52.
RafolsI (2007) Strategies for knowledge acquisition in bio-nanotechnology: Why are interdisciplinary practices less widespread than expected?Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research20(4): 395–412.
53.
SchrödingerE (1956) What is Life? and Other Scientific Essays. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
54.
SchweberS (1994) QED and the Men Who Made It: Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
55.
ShinnT (2000a) Axes thématiques et marchés de diffusion. Sociologie et Société32(1): 43–69.
56.
ShinnT (2000b) Formes de division du travail scientifique et convergence intellectuelle. Revue Française de Sociologie41: 447–473.
57.
ShinnT (2002) Research-technology instrumentation: The place of chemistry. In: MorrisPJ (ed.) From Classical to Modern Chemistry: The Instrumental Revolution. London: Science Museum, 95–110.
58.
ShinnT (2005) New sources of radical innovation research-technologies: Transversality and distributed learning in a post-industrial order. Social Science Information44(4): 731–764.
59.
ShinnT (2006) When is simulation a research technology? Practice, markets and lingua franca. In: KueppersJLehnardJShinnT (eds) Simulation: Pragmatic Construction of Reality. Dordrecht: Springer.
60.
ShinnT (2008) Research-Technology and Cultural Change: Instrumentation, Genericity, Transversality. Oxford: The Bardwell Press.
61.
ShinnTJoergesB (2002) The transverse science and technology culture: Dynamics and roles of research-technology. Social Science Information41(2): 207–251.
62.
ShinnTRagouetP (2005) Les controverses de la Science: Pour une Sociologie Transversaliste des Activités Scientifiques. Paris: Raison d’Agir.
63.
Thompson-KleinJ (1991) Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory and Practice. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
64.
Thompson-KleinJ (1996) Crossing Boundaries: Knowledge, Disciplinarities, and Interdisciplinarities. Charlottesville/London: University Press of Virginia.
65.
Thompson-KleinJ (2005) Humanities, Culture and Interdisciplinarity: The Changing American Academia. New York: State University of New York.
66.
Thompson-KleinJ (2010) Creating Interdisciplinary Campus Cultures: A Model for Strength and Sustainability. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/AACU.
67.
TurnerS (2000) What are disciplines? And how is interdisciplinarity different? In: WeingartPSterhN (eds) Practicing Interdisciplinarity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
68.
TuunainenJ (2005) Hybrid practices? Contributions to the debate on the mutation of science and university. Higher Education50(2): 275–298.
69.
WeingartPSterhN (eds) (2000) Practicing Interdisciplinarity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
70.
WeissS (1999) Fluorescence spectroscopy of single biomolecules. Science283(5408): 1676–1683.
71.
WhitleyR (2000) The Intellectual and Social Organization of the Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
72.
WinsbergE (2006) Handshaking your way to the top: Simulation at the nanoscale. Sociology of Sciences Yearbook25(3): 139–151.
