Interdisciplinary research and education are legitimate only within a sphere that has affirmed the legitimacy of the modern age. One indication is a functional rupture with traditional forms of knowledge. The question is whether interdisciplinarity in Iran have fulfilled such a condition. It appears that two decades of interdisciplinary contributions in Iran still remain distant from the functions emerging from rupture. An examination of works that take interdisciplinarity itself as their subject, as well as works that discuss various subjects through an interdisciplinary approach, demonstrates that their authors maintain, in their thinking, a continuity-oriented will toward tradition and the past. The resistance of Iranian writers and researchers to rupture with the past may be discussed under the category referred to as the secularization theorem. This theorem assumes that modern consciousness is the secularized form of ancient Christian or pagan consciousness. Iranian authors likewise, generally within the framework of the same theorem, seek to bring about an indigenous modernity through the rereading, transmission, and transformation of tradition. One sign of the failure of this mode of contribution is precisely the interdisciplinary arrangement of knowledge in Iran. Through a concise analysis of the secularization theorem by way of explaining the categories of substance/function and continuity/rupture, this article elucidates the pathology of continuity-oriented essentialism in the articles published in the Quarterly Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. It then, by focusing on one rupture-oriented article among them, prepares the ground for further discussions. Without continuity being called into question, and without a will toward rupture from the essences of tradition, neither the disciplinary system of knowledge nor the interdisciplinary system can fulfill their proper function.
Bahrani,M . (2026). Interdisciplinarity and the Secularization Theorem. (e575). Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, (), e575 doi: 10.22035/isih.2026.5770.5317
MLA
Bahrani,M . "Interdisciplinarity and the Secularization Theorem" .e575 , Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, , , 2026, e575. doi: 10.22035/isih.2026.5770.5317
HARVARD
Bahrani M. (2026). 'Interdisciplinarity and the Secularization Theorem', Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, (), e575. doi: 10.22035/isih.2026.5770.5317
CHICAGO
M Bahrani, "Interdisciplinarity and the Secularization Theorem," Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, (2026): e575, doi: 10.22035/isih.2026.5770.5317
VANCOUVER
Bahrani M. Interdisciplinarity and the Secularization Theorem. ISIH. 2026;():e575 (In Persian). doi: 10.22035/isih.2026.5770.5317