Creating a more coherent and integrated curriculum in higher education is a perennial concern. Critics and philosophers such as Immanuel Kant--one of the fathers of our modern academic system--candidly describes the political, social, and economic influences that underwrite academic fragmentation and dysfunction. Despite its complex definitions and epistemological challenges, interdisciplinarity is often cited as an integral part of plans to reform curricula. This article explores some of those plans, and it challenges present conceptualizations of interdisciplinarity as a change agent. Based on a theoretical study of Kant and Mikhail Bakhtin, a dialogic approach is recommended for curriculum redesign, and failure is recognized as a permanent feature rather than an anomaly in the structure of higher education.