The Dispositif of Creativity & The Subjectification of the Creative Individual (original) (raw)
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Author, self, monster: Using Foucault to examine functions of creativity
Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 2013
The relationship of individuals to groups has been central, and problematic, to the construct of creativity since it emerged in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Psychological research has often used the idea of creativity to differentiate and/or advocate constructs of the individual as creator, but has used a sociocultural criterioneminence-to assure validity. Researchers and creative practitioners are then caught in a contradiction in psychology's own terms: using extrinsic outcomes at the level of culture as the starting point to conceptualize individual activities characterized by intrinsic motivation. Even research that focuses on everyday creativity often identifies creativity only through judgment of products. Sociocultural approaches go further, defining creativity as social judgment of individuals' works. But what does the eminence of relatively few individuals indicate about social questions (changes in discourse and power relations) or about psychological questions (the people in the system)? This article explores an alternative approach, using Foucault's analysis of the author function, technologies of self and the related technology typology (production, signs, power and self). Comparing Foucault's analyses to the psychological discourse demonstrates advantages of integrating Foucault's ideas into the study of creativity. Analyzing the functions of creativity, rather than its ontology or location, provides a unifying framework for the wide array of approaches psychologists have developed. Within that framework individual experiences can be examined in relation to the distorting nature of the author function, needs for production and shifts in power relations, rather than conflated with them.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF CREATIVITY, 2014
reativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality, the vehicle of self-expression, and the engine of progress in every human endeavor. It also raises a wealth of neglected and yet evocative philosophical questions: What is the role of consciousness in the creative process? How does the audience for a work for art influence its creation? How can creativity emerge through childhood pretending? Do great works of literature give us insight into human nature? Can a computer program really be creative? How do we define creativity in the first place? Is it a virtue? What is the difference between creativity in science and art? Can creativity be taught? The new essays that comprise The Philosophy of Creativity take up these and other key questions and, in doing so, illustrate the value of interdisciplinary exchange. Written by leading philosophers and psychologists involved in studying creativity, the essays integrate philosophical insights with empirical research.
Creativity in perpetual personal and cultural motion?
Theory & Psychology, 2019
… the demand to be creative is more unpredictable than other demands, since it is contingent on the fickle whims of the audience. Andreas Reckwitz (Kindle location 7603) Contemporary western society is now organized on principles quite different from those which brought us modernity. Expectations for ongoing creativity and affectivity have overtaken expectations for dispassionate, predictable, productivity central to the functioning of modern factories and bureaucratic institutions. Recognizing these expectations and how we got to them is the genealogical project of The Invention of Creativity, and its author, Andreas Reckwitz, a German sociologist. Creativity, of course, is not a recent "invention"; but its functioning as a primary organizing and animating principle for western society is portrayed as the case, by Reckwitz. This is a challenging yet rewarding book for those interested in well-argued links between macro-and micronotions of social constructionist theorizing, to how these might apply in social and psychological ways to our contemporary circumstances. For readers familiar with Foucault's genealogical projects (e.g., Birth of the Clinic, 1974; Madness and Civilization, 1988), Reckwitz's volume provides a related hermeneutic focus on being historically downstream from the cultural effects of particular ideas and practices. The social constructionist element of such genealogies is how much they rely on and develop from somewhat arbitrary and changing cultural meanings and values. The emotionally sterile rationality associated with the modernity premised on enlightenment science, for Reckwitz, never erased human needs for the affective spaces and experiences marginalized to spheres of life often associated with religion and art. In this book, Reckwitz turns particularly to art and creativity, tracing how it increasingly took centre stage to bring us what animates and organizes our personal experiences and contemporary western life. Central to Reckwitz's thesis is a story of how cultural aestheticization (i.e., how western culture came to put aesthetic values, activities, and experiences as primary) shifted
Creativity, Promotion of Creativity and Destruction of Creativity - Published Text
2023
Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Creativity in Innovation - ECCI 2022 (9-10 November 2022) - https://books.aijr.org/index.php/press/catalog/book/154\. In our analysis, we would like to expose some ideas on creativity, promotion of creativity and destruction of creativity. Our general intent is to show that creativity is not reserved for geniuses but, on the contrary, belongs to all individuals. Moreover, we aim to describe how creativity can be promoted in individuals in different ages of their life. Finally, we wish to expose that creativity is a disposition which always needs to be cultivated with all possible care: for creativity can be easily damaged or even destroyed because of a false education of the individuals or due to negatively organised work environments. For our investigation, we shall take elements from different sources: we shall analyse ideas expressed in the works of Teresa Amabile, we shall consider the criticism of traditional pedagogy exposed in the meditation of Paulo Freire, we shall propose some examples of the black – namely the poisonous – pedagogy contained in the work of Katharina Rutschky, we shall present Alice Miller’s criticism of determined models of education, and we shall the inquiry into the concept of innovation exposed in the research of Tina Seelig. The works of Teresa Amabile will show that creativity is a faculty which belongs to all individuals, not only to the most endowed ones. Amabile shows in her book different examples of the ways in which creativity and motivation are improved both in schools and in companies; she analyses how, on the contrary, creativity and motivation are damaged and destroyed in schools and in companies. With the help of Amabile’s inquiries, we shall show the importance of making progress in the work both in schools and in the work environments: people and their progress ought always to be supported in order that the disposition to creativity can function. People always need positive consideration in schools and in work environments. Rutschky’s analysis of the poisonous pedagogy will show us how certain methods of education lead to the destruction of any creativity whatsoever and of the whole personality of the individual. Alice Miller’s works will give further examples regarding the destruction of autonomy through traditional methods of education. Thanks to Paulo Freire’s meditation we shall see how creativity depends on the models of society: in particular, concepts like the bank account of education and internalisation can teach us how the individuals in the schools are transformed into a completely passive audience, thus losing any capacity whatsoever of proposing innovation in the work and in the society. The structure of society and the aims of society determine the models of schools operating in society. The works of Tina Seelig will finally give us the possibility of seeing the different components needed for the development of creativity: for instance, imagination, knowledge, resources, and culture will prove to be essential components of creativity. Bibliography Amabile, T., Growing Up Creative: Nurturing a Lifetime of Creativity, Crown Amabile, T.M. & Stubbs, M.L., 1989. Amabile, T., Creativity In Context: Update To The Social Psychology Of Creativity, Westview Press, Boulder, CO 1996. Amabile, T.M. & Kramer, S.J., The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston 2011. Freire, P., Pedagogia do Oprimido, Paz e Terra, Rio de Janeiro 1974. Freire, P., Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Myra Bergman Ramos, Trad.). (Original work published in 1970), The Continuum Publishing Company, New York 1992. Miller, A., Am Anfang war Erziehung. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1980. Miller, A., Du sollst nicht merken. Variationen über das Paradies-Thema. 1. Auflage. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1981. Rutschky K. (ed.), Schwarze Pädagogik. Quellen zur Naturgeschichte der bürgerlichen Erziehung, Ullstein, Berlin 1977; Neuausgabe ebd. 1997. Seelig, T., inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity. HarperCollins, 2012.
The Journal of Creative Behavior, 1997
Because of misperceptions about the nature of creativity, many creative children are misunderstood in and out of their classrooms. Based on a close association with creative adults and childrenn, the authors postulate that creativity is a state of being that is challenged by the socialization process in Western civilization. The authors envisage two differing states of being namely, a n essential and a conventional. These states represent end points on a continuum. Creative adults speak of their struggle to try and regain something of their original state of being. Understanding creative children who are closer to the essential state is important for their emotional wellbeing and the nurturing of their creativity.
Creative discourse as a means of exploring and developing human creativity
Applied Psycholinguistics and Multilingual Cognition in Human Creativity, 2019
The chapter explores and elucidates the ways in which the cultivation of creative discourse is associated with the formation of the necessary conditions that promote human creativity. The study focuses on revealing the mechanisms behind attempts of personal expression which incite a multifaceted processing of reality and a redefinition of the relationship between pre-existing and newly acquired knowledge. These mechanisms are studied in order to identify the ways in which creative discourse, under specific conditions, can transform from an innate human capacity into a creative ability
Cultivating creative mentalities: A framework for education
Thinking Skills and Creativity, 2006
Is it possible to organise life in schools and classrooms in such a way that young people not only have the opportunity to express their creativity, but systematically become more creative? That is the question addressed by this paper. It draws upon and synthesises a range of different kinds of evidence-anthropological, phenomenological, experimental and neuroscientific, as well as classroom-based action research studies-that clarify what it means to have a 'creative mentality'; and suggest that the answer to the question whether such mentalities are capable of cultivation is 'probably yes'. Clearing the desks The study of 'creativity' seeks answers not to one but to a family of complementary questions that need distinguishing if we are not to suffer unnecessary confusion. For example, 'What counts as a creative product or performance?', concerns the social and psychological processes of judgement. It asks how value is ascribed. And the answer depends critically on specifying 'for whom?' An idea can validly be judged novel, insightful and useful by its creator, and how this attribution is made is quite a different question from how the accolade 'creative' is bestowed and negotiated socially. There is no need to get hung up on whether a 'true' creative product can be 'new for me', or whether it has to be 'new in human history': they are different questions.
Creativity: Can It Be Trained? A Scientific Educology of Creativity
Online Submission, 2005
The author, from the editorial's perspective, does not directly inquire with the axiologic and praxiologic educological questions, respectively, as: "Ought students be taught creativity in educative experiences that organically inhere in the teacher education program at Vilnius