Dear David, Dear All,

Perhaps I should add a few words on why creativity research has long interested me.

Back in the days of my mis-spent youth, I was at one point a student at San Francisco State University. My work was interdisciplinary, and I migrated among the faculties of education, psychology, and social science. The two most exciting thinkers I encountered were David Cahoon and Scott Hope. David introduced me to Kierkegaard, and Scott introduced me to creativity research.

Back then, much of the interest in creativity research focused on issues linked to human potential, development, and this was in turn linked with humanistic psychology as typified by thinkers such as Abraham Maslow, Virginia Satir, Frtiz Perls, or Sydney Jourard. The focal points for this kind of work were universities seeking ways to mover beyond traditional education in ways that expand our world -- and expand our human ability to respond to the world by creating constructive change. Much of this work engaged the issue that Cameron brought forward as collaborative cognition by seeking approaches to community-based creativity in ways we might now call co-creation, co-production, and the like. Of course, it was a different world back then -- the Viet Nam War was still raging, human beings had not yet landed on the moon, and many people believed that constructive social change was far more possible than it now seems to be. In that world, creativity research and creativity education seemed valuable and promising. Provided that we take on board the constraints and conditions we've discovered since, I'd argue that this is still the case. But there is a lot more to understand to do it well.

That said, a quick glance at the latest edition of Robert Sternberg's Handbook of Creativity Research shows me that I am so far behind in this field that I have relatively little to say on the substantive topic. Nevertheless, the people who do this work are serious scholars whose work many subscribers to this list use for other purposes ... before dismissing the field outright, I'd suggest a look.

David recalls an earlier debate in which I was probably grumpier than I should have been -- mostly the point I've been trying to make is that this is an exciting field, and it offers much. At least, this is my view. I don't think we have to agree with every proposition about creativity to find value in the field.

War regards,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS
Professor
Dean

Swinburne Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia