From Monomyth to Interdisciplinary Creative Polymathy

Frédéric Darbellay
University of Geneva

Darbellay, F. (2017). From Monomyth to Interdisciplinary Creative Polymathy. Journal of Genius and Eminence, 2(2), 44-53. http://dx.doi.org/10.18536/jge.2017.02.2.2.05

A constructive re-reading of Campbell’s work on the hero’s journey as a monomyth offers the opportunity to put it into perspective in the context of a broader and specific reflection on experiences and transformations of researchers who venture between and beyond disciplinary boundaries. If the journey of the literary or scientific hero follows seemingly marked stages with a strong disciplinary and disciplined typification, it is also likely to undergo variations in trajectories, bifurcations and new orientations. By revisiting the concept of the monomyth and based on the results of an empirical research on interdisciplinary research practices, this paper proposes a reflection on the identities and trajectories of researchers with a thousand faces who transgress disciplinary boundaries and let express their polymathic skills and scientific creativity. The interdisciplinary and creative researcher is not necessarily an eminent scientific genius, but rather an ordinary hero who is still dominated in the academic world but whose talent consists in appropriating concepts, theories and methods from different disciplines and combine them to develop new approaches to analyze and understand the complexity of ideas and the world.

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