Feminism and performance: A post-disciplinary couple

Feminist studies resulted from activist challenges to the very institutiona lization of knowledge. Feminist studies, like studies of performance imagin e their ground in embodied actions performed, somehow, socially, breaking d own disciplinary boundaries to create a 'field' of study regarded as 'inter disciplinary'. However, the term 'post-disciplinary', now in current usage, announces a different relationship to fields of study than the earlier ter m 'interdisciplinary', now in current usage, announces a different relation ship to fields of study than the earlier term 'interdisciplinary' might con note. 'Interdisciplinary' is a term that signals a sense of a unified field , produced through the historical convergence of subcultures, social struct ures, and training practices. 'Post- disciplinary' retains nothing of the n otion that a shared consciousness, or a shared objective, brings together a broad range of discrete studies. Instead, it suggests that the organizing structures of disciplines themselves will not hold. Only conditional conjun ctions of social and intellectual forces exist, at which scholarship and pe rformance may be produced.