'Unfencing' our academic fields
In a digital age, we have less need for division, for we can rely on digital tools to provide us greater connection instead, allowing for increased knowledge of both subject areas and those working within them. We no longer need the restrictions of "field." In fact, we should be promoting just the opposite, a revolutionary approach to academia, one that dispenses with disciplinary boundaries rather than creating more of them. None of us needs to be in a department any longer, not if we are willing to rely on our digital tools for keeping track of who is doing what, where, and when. In terms of our scholarship, digital tools allow us to evaluate ourselves and each other, and to see how even people across the world view the work, in a matter of moments....
We can "unfence" our academic fields today but, too often, we do not, but continue to follow patterns that, though they might have once been necessary, are no longer needed in this digital world.
