Interdisciplinarity has gained increasing prominence as a general guiding principle for innovative research over the past decades. However, few works have attempted to provide a comprehensive survey of the phenomenon from the specific vantage point of literary and cultural studies. The handbook aims to fill this lacuna. It explores interdisciplinarity in the fields of contemporary literary and cultural scholarship and provides a guide to key debates on (current) forms, theories, and practices of interdisciplinarity. Beyond central systematic questions, the handbook pays special attention to the actual disciplines that engage in forms of cross-disciplinary exchange. It portrays established as well as emerging fields of interdisciplinary collaboration and responds to the substantial acceleration of the differentiation within single academic disciplines and subjects illustrated by the emergence of an increasing number of turns (e.g. the cultural, ethical, spatial turn) and studies (e.g. environmental studies, sensory studies, disability studies etc.). It tackles current research challenges ranging from pandemics to climate change, thus, not only presenting an overview, but a timely intervention in interdisciplinary research.

Nadine Böhm-Schnitker, University of Konstanz, Germany; Marcus Hartner, University of Bielefeld, Germany.