Overview

Creativity: Theory, History, Practice offers important new perspectives on creativity in the light of contemporary critical theory and cultural history. Innovative in approach as well as argument, the book crosses disciplinary boundaries and builds new bridges between the critical and the creative. It is organised in four parts: * Why creativity now? offers much-needed alternatives to both the Romantic stereotype of the creator as individual genius and the tendency of the modern creative industries to treat everything as a commodity. * Defining creativity, creating definitions traces the changing meaning of 'create' from religious ideas of divine creation from nothing to advertising notions of concept creation. It also examines the complex history and extraordinary versatility of terms such as imagination, invention, inspiration and originality. * Creation as myth, story, metaphor begins with modern re-tellings of early African, American and Australian creation myths and - picking up Biblical and evolutionary accounts along the way - works round to scientific visions of the Big Bang, bubble universes and cosmic soup. * Creative practices, cultural processes is a critical anthology of materials, chosen to promote fresh thinking about everything from changing constructions of 'literature' and 'design' to artificial intelligence and genetic engineering. Rob Pope takes significant steps forward in the process of rethinking a vexed yet vital concept, all the while encouraging and equipping readers to continue the process in their own creative or 're-creative' ways. Creativity: Theory, History, Practice is invaluable for anyone with a live interest in exploring what creativity has been, is currently, and yet may be.

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9780415349154

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Reviews

'This varied and provocative book takes a multi-lensed instrument to the many historical and theoretical facets of creativity. Pope's scope is immense, his method discursive.' - Writing in Education 'For an author to achieve the rigour and practical applicability of a text-book as well as the academic and depth-informed qualities of a monograph, while creating at the same time ample room for discursive and associative play, is no mean feat - but this is Pope's ongoing signature and para phase' - Writing in Education 'This is a valuable book that ought to be read by anyone in the humanities working on notions of the creative ... The book will provide valuable service to numerous readers as an intellectual workout on the diversity of its field.' -British Association for Romantic Studies

'This varied and provocative book takes a multi-lensed instrument to the many historical and theoretical facets of creativity. Pope's scope is immense, his method discursive.' - Writing in Education 'For an author to achieve the rigour and practical applicability of a text-book as well as the academic and depth-informed qualities of a monograph, while creating at the same time ample room for discursive and associative play, is no mean feat - but this is Pope's ongoing signature and para phase' - Writing in Education 'This is a valuable book that ought to be read by anyone in the humanities working on notions of the creative ... The book will provide valuable service to numerous readers as an intellectual workout on the diversity of its field.' -British Association for Romantic Studies

'This varied and provocative book takes a multi-lensed instrument to the many historical and theoretical facets of creativity. Pope's scope is immense, his method discursive.' - Writing in Education 'For an author to achieve the rigour and practical applicability of a text-book as well as the academic and depth-informed qualities of a monograph, while creating at the same time ample room for discursive and associative play, is no mean feat - but this is Pope's ongoing signature and para phase' - Writing in Education 'This is a valuable book that ought to be read by anyone in the humanities working on notions of the creative ... The book will provide valuable service to numerous readers as an intellectual workout on the diversity of its field.' -British Association for Romantic Studies

I've been waiting for a book exactly like this one. Rob Pope <br>combines historical and critical insights into the term 'creativity' with <br>a very practical sense of how these insights might be used. As a <br>writer on campus, I can't rate this book highly enough. Superb!. <br>-Graeme Harper, Chair, UK Centre for Creative Writing Research Through Practice <br> This varied and provocative book takes a multi-lensed instrument to the many historical and theoretical facets of creativity. Pope's scope is immense, his method discursive. He's prepared to look as far back as the Big Bang, but will also risk a peek at the 'shaping of things to come'; he peers across genres, both popular and elite, for patterns, confluences and conflicts; he examines the East as well as the West for origins, myths and clues. <br>-Mario Petrucci, Oxford Brookes University <br> An outstanding book. It is well-read, well-written, innovative and<br>intellectually stimulating. Creatively, it practices what it preaches by<br>bringing together a series of different and challenging ideas, like folding<br>a piece of material in a new way to make a new garment. <br>-Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway, University of London, and Series Editor of Routledge Critical Thinkers <br> Rob Pope has created yet another invaluable key text. Creativity: theory, history, practice is the most thorough, creatively-devised, and exciting book on this subject that I have read to date. It is an essential resource for anyone in the worlds of creative writing or literary studies and its lively cross-cultural, interdisciplinary approach will give students and tutors of all disciplines a fascinating and inspiring foundation for their futurelearning. <br>-Robyn Bolam, Professor of Literature, St Mary's College <br> With its strikingly fresh arguments, its scintillating constellation of critical voices, and its provocatively productive mappings of the topography of thought, Creativity is less an academic study than a highly imaginative theoretical fiction that offers the open-minded student countless possibilities to 'create' in unexpected and fascinating ways. Rob Pope's Creativity is that rare thing-an event in critical discourse. <br>-Julian Wolfreys <br>

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Rob Pope

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