The Cult of Creativity
University of Chicago Press (Verlag)
978-0-226-83670-6 (ISBN)
Creativity is one of American society’s signature values, but the idea that there is such a thing as “creativity”—and that it can be cultivated—is surprisingly recent, entering our everyday speech in the 1950s. As Samuel W. Franklin reveals, postwar Americans created creativity, through campaigns to define and harness the power of the individual to meet the demands of American capitalism and life under the Cold War. Creativity was championed by a cluster of professionals—psychologists, engineers, and advertising people—as a cure for the conformity and alienation they feared was stifling American ingenuity. It was touted as a force of individualism and the human spirit, a new middle-class aspiration that suited the needs of corporate America and the spirit of anticommunism.
Amid increasingly rigid systems, creativity took on an air of romance; it was a more democratic quality than genius, but more rarified than mere intelligence. The term eluded clear definition, allowing all sorts of people and institutions to claim it as a solution to their problems, from corporate dullness to urban decline. Today, when creativity is constantly sought after, quantified, and maximized, Franklin’s eye-opening history of the concept helps us to see what it really is, and whom it really serves.
Samuel W. Franklin is a cultural historian and a postdoctoral researcher in human-centered design at the Delft University of Technology. He has earned awards and fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, the Hagley Library and Museum, the Hathi Trust Research Center, the Stanford Arts Institute, and Brown University’s Center for Digital Scholarship. He has developed exhibitions for the American Museum of Natural History, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, and others.
Introduction
1 Between the Commonplace and the Sublime
2 The Birth of Brainstorming
3 Creativity as Self-Actualization
4 Synectics at the Shoe
5 The Creative Child
6 Revolution on Madison Avenue
7 Creativity Is Dead . . .
8 From Progress to Creativity
9 Long Live Creativity
Conclusion: What Is to Be Done?
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
| Erscheinungsdatum | 20.08.2024 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 8 halftones |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Gewicht | 340 g |
| Themenwelt | Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte |
| Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte | |
| Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-226-83670-3 / 0226836703 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-226-83670-6 / 9780226836706 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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