ENGL 145 - Creativity

Creativity makes you live longer, reduces stress levels, fosters brain cell growth, and boosts the immune system (according to multiple studies). Creativity is how we transform the world and the self and is at the core of creating an integrated and happier self (according to the Humanistic School of psychology). Yet our capacity to think creatively declines by 90% from childhood to adulthood. This course is meant to kindle your creativity, refresh your brain’s neuroplasticity and adaptability, while at the same time teaching you about the history, theory, philosophy, neuroscience and practice of creativity. It will answer key questions about creativity: What is it? Who has it? How can we measure it? How can we access it? And we will work as a group to nurture each other’s creativity with many small creative projects, and in addition each student will generate, conceptualize, structure a large project. It could be for a music student several songs towards a concept album, for a writer a chapbook of poems or series of short stories or one act play or TV pilot or podcast. The start of the term lays the groundwork, gives the key concepts, and develops the project, the final weeks of the semester, will consist of workshopping and revising what has been created. Possible critical topics to be explored during the semester include Plato’s concept of the bi-gendered brain, and of the creative mind as pregnant with art, giving birth to the brain child; Daoist and Buddhist ideas of the creative source and manifestations; the emergence of the concept of “genius” from Rome to the Renaissance, from Freud and Jung through contemporary creativity theory; the neuroscience of creativity; creativity and authorship in the era of AI-generated art, music and writing; and questions of diversity, equity and inclusion in creative practice and reception. Students will attend cultural events at Whittier College or in the community.

3 credits