The doctoral programme Interdisciplinary Discourse Studies (InterDisc) at Aalborg University was an inter-departmental collaboration in the Faculty of Humanities. It welcomed doctoral students who were interested in studying discourses in contemporary societies in the broadest sense from interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and post-disciplinary perspectives. In 2020, our doctoral programme was forced to split and merge with the departmental level doctoral programmes in two departments when the smaller doctoral programmes were reorganised.
The concept discourse includes the many ways in which language is used, such as writing, speech, bodily gestures, music or silence. It also entails a socially constructed perspective, where social actors and actions negotiate and constitute meaning, relations and identities.
Doctoral students were trained in a stimulating local and international research milieu. In this interdisciplinary and enriching learning community, research ideas and problems were shared, and learning followed the principles of Problem Based Learning.