Graduate Students Driven to Discover: Corbin Treacy on the IDF

**The challenges—and rewards—of interdisciplinary work**

Probing new frontiers is both difficult and rewarding. For Corbin Treacy, a graduate student in French whose work focuses on Algeria’s tumultuous public life following the country’s independence from France in 1962, crossing disciplinary boundaries means learning the landscapes of Algeria’s political climate, economy, and intellectual culture, in addition to theories of memory, transitional justice, and historiography.

Talking to colleagues in other fields is the biggest challenge of interdisciplinary inquiry, says Corbin, as “different fields all have different frames of reference and different methodologies, which requires finding a common language for discussing one’s work.” But, this is also the biggest advantage: “Listening to how colleagues in other fields are grappling with similar questions has moved my own thinking in new and unexpected directions.” Through his research, Corbin hopes to demonstrate the power of literature not only to represent the history and politics of a nation, but to positively influence its future.
Read more at "grad.umn.edu/news/2013/idf_discoveries":http://www.grad.umn.edu/news/2013/idf_discoveries/

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