Teaching interdisciplinary studies' tools to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the EUlephant

In this paper, I explore the potential added value of teaching insights from interdisciplinary studies in EU studies curricula. EU studies, I submit, is a body of knowledge, which consists of insight from different disciplines, such as law, economics, and history to name but a few. In the often-used metaphor of the blind people touching an elephant, each of these disciplines investigates a distinct part of the EU. Although scholars often seek to combine insights, teaching often remains multidisciplinary in nature. Students are taught se parate insights, but they are not given clear tools to bring them together in a coherent whole. Their curiosity into how these insights fit together remains. Current EU studies' teaching materials, to my knowledge, do not offer them tools for this task. Here interdisciplinary studies might fill this lacune. Interdisciplinary studies scholars have developed approaches and techniques to systematically integrate insight from multiple disciplines into one holistic perspective. I will introduce these tools in particular the interdisciplinary research process. I hope to make it apparent that these tools have the potential to enrich EU studies programs and courses. To bolster this theoretical case and make examples concrete, I draw upon my experiences and educational research into interdisciplinary PPE+ education and initial experiments in EU courses. These pedagogical tools allow students – and possibly their teachers – to systematically and critically investigate the EU and European integration project. This article sets out to make the case for a research agenda into interdisciplinary EU education and develop pedagogical tools for the field.