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Content: Creativity comes from a range of different sources, and, over the course of cultural history, it has been understood in a variety of different ways: as divine inspiration, as emulating great works of art, as the province of individual genius, as the product of chance and experiment, as play, variation and improvisation, and so on. Likewise, creative means different things in different national and cultural contexts and is valued in different ways.Ìý And the moment of creativity can be sparked in both individual and collaborative contexts.Ìý Ìý
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This module combines the study of key ideas about creativity - historical, philosophical, those of artists, practitioners of various sorts, and so on – with an exploration, in a practical and hands-on fashion, of the way that things like play, improvisation, serendipity and the aleatory can result in creative outputs.Ìý Learning that failure is part of the creative process, and how to move forwards from that, as well as adapting and resilience skills, are also key parts of the module.ÌýÌý

Teaching delivery: A single 3-hour block that will combine elements of lecture, of workshop, of group activity, of seminar, of creative exercises.

Indicative content (based on the module as taught in 2023/24):

1. Beginnings: what does it mean to start doing something new?Ìý

2. Familiar and strange: how does creative reveal things about what we already know and help us discover things that we don’t know?Ìý

3. Play, chance and error: in what way can creativity be seen as sort of game that involves making and breaking rules?Ìý

4. The ethics of creativity: with what right do we tell our own stories and the stories of others?Ìý

5. The politics of creativity I: how do notions of creativity reflect political ideas that are centred on the individual and what might collective creativity look like?Ìý

6. The remake: what would it mean if we were uncreative? If we simply remade things already made by others?Ìý

7. The politics of creativity II: who gets to be creative and whose voices are often not heard?Ìý

8. The Night: how might the darkness – dreams and nightmares – be a source of creativity?Ìý

Module aims:

• To equip students with an understanding of key theories of creativity and creative practice;
• To build skills in creative thinking and creative play, and confidence in using a range of tools in these areas;
• To develop reflective practice and communication;Ìý
• To develop skills in resilience and adaptability, around an appreciation that creative ideas often need several iterations before they work, or sometimes necessitate accepting they never will;
• To build solo and team-building skills.Ìý

By the end of this module students should be able to: Ìý

• appreciate the complexity of different disciplinary and practitioner notions of 'creativity';
• understand the various ideas of creativity in texts, cases and other materials; Ìý
• interact imaginatively with their peers and with tutors;
• synthesise ideas imaginatively from a range of different disciplinary perspectives;
• appreciate the value of understanding and experiencing different disciplinary approaches and perspectives on creativity, especially in relation to their subject specialism; Ìý
• participate in creative activities and support the generation of original ideas and questions;Ìý
• learn from failure, and be more resilient to this, accepting creativity is not always a positive experience.Ìý

This module is taught at the ÐÂÏã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûEast campus in Stratford.