The Renaissance Considered as a Creative Phenomenon

The Renaissance Considered as a Creative Phenomenon
Author: Subrata Dasgupta
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2021-12-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000514900

By using the fresh investigative language of cognitive history, a symbiosis of the methods of cognitive science and historical inquiry, this book departs from almost all previous approaches to Renaissance studies. The Renaissance has attracted the attention of distinguished scholars from many different vantage points – political, social, economic, intellectual, and cultural. In this volume, Subrata Dasgupta sheds an alternative light on the Renaissance by considering it as a creative phenomenon. To be creative is to make history by producing material and/or abstract artifacts that are both new and consequential; to be creative also entails drawing on history and on the culture of the time. Most significantly, the creative process occurs in individual minds: it is a cognitive process of a very special kind. Beginning with a ‘prehistory’ set in classical Greece and medieval Islam, this book explores a variety of inventions and discoveries through the 14th–16th centuries, mainly in Italy, in humanities, painting, architecture, craft technology, anatomy, natural science, and engineering. This book will be of interest not only to Renaissance scholars but also to students interested in Renaissance history and the nature of the creative tradition.

Reconciling Art and Technology

Reconciling Art and Technology
Author: Subrata Dasgupta
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2024-05-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1040035663

This book examines two venerable cultures, art and technology, and uses the young "interdiscipline" of cognitive history combined with case studies of both ancient and modern artifacts to explore, and unveil, some of the bridges by which this reconciliation of two seemingly distant and oppositional cultures can be effected. Art and technology are commonly regarded as oppositional. While both are concerned with made things – artifacts – and both have their origins in pre-literate antiquity, the primary purposes they are intended for are quite distinct: the artifacts of technology serve utilitarian purposes while those of art serve affective needs. This opposition between art and technology, notably argued by such scholars as Lewis Mumford and George Kubler is challenged in this book. For, when we consider art and technology as creative phenomena, then many significant, interesting, and often subtle commonalities emerge whereby a reconciliation – a unity – of these two great cultures seems possible. This book utilizes case studies of both ancient and modern artifacts – ranging from the Nataraja sculpture of ancient India, a great astronomical clock of ancient China, and Japanese Samurai swordmaking, through Gothic cathedrals and Renaissance paintings of Europe to English Elizabethan machinery to the French Impressionists to modernist concrete structures and paintings in both East and West. This book will be of interest to students and professional scholars interested in the histories of art and technology, cultural history, and creativity studies.

The Anthropology of Poiesis

The Anthropology of Poiesis
Author: Mihai Popa
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2022-01-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1527578747

The volume addresses a distinct field in the anthropology of culture, namely that of creativity. It defines the cultural field of poiesis, which includes not only the poetic creation, but also the scientific and philosophical one, and, above all, insists on the connection of creativity with the metaphysical spirituality, the mythological imaginary, and the sacred realm. Creation is primarily personal—this phenomenon is obvious both in the field of art and of theory. This book considers that it is necessary to emphasize, from the perspective of cultural anthropology, the importance and significance of the creative act that binds all fields of culture. To this end, it gives new meanings to the relationship between the symbolic and abstract in the field of cultural creation, a relationship considered from the perspective of three concepts—beauty, harmony and dynamic asymmetry—as well as the relationship between creative intuition and constructive reason. The book adopts a historical-comparative approach, from the perspective of the dialectic of the creative act, the becoming and synthesis of some opposite elements, coordinated by the abstract-creative principle: dynamis and symetros, rational and symbolic, immanent and transcendent. It shows that the meaning of experience as a creative synthesis is primordial and fundamental to human existence. The book is addressed both to specialists in the field of philosophy of art or cultural anthropology, and to the general reader who wants to approach the original meaning of spiritual creation, poiesis, which is the unification of all possible experiences, both feelings and knowledge.

Creativity

Creativity
Author: James C. Kaufman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2021-04-08
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1108489370

This introductory textbook features expert, cutting-edge theory and research on creativity tailored for undergraduate courses.

Expressionism as an International Literary Phenomenon

Expressionism as an International Literary Phenomenon
Author: Ulrich Weisstein
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 367
Release: 1973-01-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9027284806

Ulrich Weisstein’s collection of 21 essays offers a comparative study of Expressionism as a Modernist movement whose dynamic core lay in Germany and Austria-Hungary, but which transformed artistic practices in other European countries. The focus, Weisstein argues, “must be strictly and sharply aimed at a specific body of works and opinions—a relatively dense core surrounded by a less clearly defined fringe zone—indigenous to the German speaking countries.” The volume spans an “Expressionist” period extending from roughly 1910 to 1925. Weisstein himself contributes two introductory chapters on problems of definition and a thoughtful analysis of English Vorticism. An ample context is set by comparative essays concerned with international movements such as Futurism that had an impact on German Expressionist drama, prose, and poetry, together with essays on the adaptation of Expressionist forms in countries such as Poland, Russia, Hungary, South Slavic nations and the United States. These essays call attention to representative authors and artists, as well as to periodicals and artistic circles. Reviewers have praised not only the presentation of “literary links and interaction” among national cultures, but especially the “most rewarding” interdisciplinary essays on Dada and on Expressionist painting, music, and film.

The Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity Research

The Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity Research
Author: Izabela Lebuda
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 595
Release: 2018-10-30
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 3319954989

This Handbook brings together an international cast of experts to explore the social nature and context of creativity studies, focusing on methodology as a key component in advancing the social study of creativity. Two decades on from the pioneering work of Alfonso Montuori and Ronald E. Purser, the authors present a timely appraisal of past and present work in social creativity studies, and look ahead to future developments within this field. The authors collectively offer a rigorous examination of the methodological and empirical issues and techniques involved in studying social creativity. They examine the phenomenon as a form of communication and interaction within collaborative relationships; contending that creativity happens not within a vacuum but instead from a nexus of personal, social and contextual influences. This comprehensive work is organized in three parts, focusing first on the various methodological approaches applicable to the social in creativity studies. It secondly turns to empirical findings and approaches relating to the social nature of creativity. In the book’s final part, the authors offer reflections on the state of social research into creativity, pinpointing areas requiring further methodological scrutiny and empirical verification, and areas that may inspire further theoretical or applied work. Combining classic ideas with cutting-edge, emerging methods, this work provides a vital methodological ‘toolbox’ for investigators within social creativity.

The Renaissance Considered as a Creative Phenomenon

The Renaissance Considered as a Creative Phenomenon
Author: Subrata Dasgupta
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2021-12-31
Genre:
ISBN: 9781032146843

By using the fresh investigative language of cognitive history, a symbiosis of the methods of cognitive science and historical inquiry, this book departs from almost all previous approaches to Renaissance studies. The Renaissance has attracted the attention of distinguished scholars from many different vantage points -- political, social, economic, intellectual, and cultural. In this volume, Subrata Dasgupta sheds an alternative light on the Renaissance by considering it as a creative phenomenon. To be creative is to make history by producing material and/or abstract artifacts that are both new and consequential; to be creative also entails drawing on history and on the culture of the time. Most significantly, the creative process occurs in individual minds: it is a cognitive process of a very special kind. Beginning with a 'prehistory' set in classical Greece and medieval Islam, this book explores a variety of inventions and discoveries through the 14th-16th centuries, mainly in Italy, in the humanities, painting, architecture, craft technology, anatomy, natural science, and engineering. This book will be of interest not only to Renaissance scholars but also to students interested in Renaissance history and the nature of the creative tradition.

Dynamic Perspectives on Creativity

Dynamic Perspectives on Creativity
Author: Ronald A. Beghetto
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2019-01-17
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3319991639

This edited volume provides a venue for scholars whose work challenges the typical, static conceptions, and methods of studying creativity. More specifically, the book will serve as an effort to introduce more dynamic definitions, conceptions, and approaches for studying creativity in the context of educational practice. By doing so, it feeds the strong contemporary need for more dynamic conceptions of creativity in educational settings. This is particularly important given the fast evolution of modern society and the widespread consensus that efforts to develop creative potential should be democratized -- extending well beyond the boundaries of the gifted subset and the walls of the classroom. This work recognizes that more dynamic perspectives on creativity are necessary for understanding its complexity, value, and meaning in educational contexts.