Brian McCormack

Brian McCormack is Teaching Professor at Arizona State University in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts.  He teaches core courses in Liberal Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies.  He served as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies from 2014-2020, and as International Liaison and Director of Sections for much of that time.  In 2014, he founded the local Chapter of Alpha Iota Sigma, the national honor society of interdisciplinary studies, and until 2023 served as its Faculty Advisor, and Editor of its student journal, Interdisciplinary Studies Works.  Two of his courses have been selected as Exemplary Syllabi by the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies.  In 2018, he spoke as a member of a Keynote Panel, introducing the concept of “Interdiversities,” at the 40th Annual Conference of the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies. McCormack began his intellectual life as a scholar of International Relations, in which he worked on the application of critical international relations theory to Indonesian foreign relations, which included published work on international law, economic development, and postcolonial theory.  His recent writing and thinking involves the development of interdisciplinary theory.  Published titles include: “Making Interdisciplinarity Work through Translation and Analogical Thinking,” “The Problem with Problem Solving,” “Naming Interdisciplinarity,” “Interdisciplining Global Thinking,” and “What Color Is the Interdisciplinary?”