Interdisciplinarity has served as a guiding principle for innovative research for several decades, yet few works have surveyed the phenomenon comprehensively from the perspective of literary and cultural studies. The handbook aims to fill this gap by providing a guide to key debates on (current) forms, theories, and practices of interdisciplinarity in contemporary literary and cultural scholarship. Beyond systematic questions interrogating the forms, benefits and challenges of interdisciplinarity in the humanities in general, the handbook pays special attention to contemporary approaches and research paradigms in English and American studies that engage in forms of inter- and transdisciplinary exchange. It portrays both established and emerging fields of collaboration and responds to the increasing internal differentiation of literary and cultural studies, reflected in the proliferation of influential ‘turns’ and ‘studies’, including environmental studies, disability studies, gender studies, game studies, and the digital humanities (etc.). The volume thus both serves as a guide to key debates of interdisciplinarity and provides a map of the wide spectrum of interdisciplinary intersections shaping literary and cultural studies today.
