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In the 1990s, amid political upheaval and civil war, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia dissolved into five successor states. The subsequent independence of Montenegro and Kosovo brought the total number to seven. Balkan scholar and diplomat to the region Mieczyslaw P. Boduszynski examines four of those states—Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia—and traces their divergent paths toward democracy and Euro-Atlantic integration over the past two decades. Boduszynski argues that regime change in the Yugoslav successor states was powerfully shaped by both internal and external forces: the economic conditions on the eve of independence and transition and the incentives offered by the European Union and other Western actors to encourage economic and political liberalization. He shows how these factors contributed to differing formulations of democracy in each state. The author engages with the vexing problems of creating and sustaining democracy when circumstances are not entirely supportive of the effort. He employs innovative concepts to measure the quality of and prospects for democracy in the Balkan region, arguing that procedural indicators of democratization do not adequately describe the stability of liberalism in post-communist states. This unique perspective on developments in the region provides relevant lessons for regime change in the larger post-communist world. Scholars, practitioners, and policymakers will find the book to be a compelling contribution to the study of comparative politics, democratization, and European integration.
The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.
Genius and breakthroughs appear to involve something magical. Andrew Robinson looks at what science does, and does not, know about exceptional creativity, and applied it to the stories of ten breakthroughs in the arts and sciences, including Curie's discovery of radium and Mozart's composing of The Marriage of Figaro.
This cutting-edge Handbook takes stock of a diverse set of theoretical and methodological perspectives that address creativity, innovation, and the ways in which they intersect. Considering the development of the field, the Handbook examines current trends to chart a path forward for promising future research.
Craft lives inside the artist, and it operates in the mind, not in standards or techniques. Creative writers navigate thresholds in consciousness as they develop their arts practice. Craft Consciousness and Artistic Practice in Creative Writing explores what it is to be an artist as it traces radical, feminist, and culturally embedded traditions in craft. The new term "craft consciousness" identifies the nexus from which writers explore making processes and practitioner knowledge. Writers, as with all artists, create and reimagine themselves anew, and it is in this perpetual state of becoming that they find ways to enlarge their sense of artistry through an exploration of forms, processes, and mediums beyond the written word. For writers, this book initiates a reexamination of the mission of creative writing through disrupting patriarchal, racist, colonialist, ableist, and capitalist associations with dominant craft. Drawing from twenty-five interviews with living artists outside of writing and in a host of fields from conceptual art to leatherwork and dance, the book shines a light on how the processes associated with craft are embodied. Craft is an internalized matrix; it need not be commodified for the marketplace or codified in the standards necessitated by institutions of higher education. By redesigning writing workshops and MFA/PhD programs through craft consciousness, new potentials and collaborations emerge, and it becomes more conceivable to imagine dynamic, inclusive relationships between writers, scientists, and other artists.
Karl Lagerfeld's description of his sunglasses as a 'Burqa for my eyes' drew a huge amount of commentary. But what was going on within that phrase? Why was it deemed original and contentious and what can it tell us about creativity? Taking us through cliché, metaphor, analogy, neologism and surrealism, amongst other creative tropes, Tony Veale offers a comprehensive guide to the actual processes behind linguistic creativity. By grounding his approachable examples in easy to replicate methods, the book is perfect as a resource for individual creative exploration. Anyone with an open mind and a computer and a desire to learn about how we creatively say things with words will love this book.Written by an expert in natural language generation, this deceptively simple book offers powerful tools for reconceptualising creativity.
The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life, Revised and Expanded discusses how humans can find inspiration in their own lives to drive creative process. This book discusses that by understanding the concept of structure, we can reorder the structural make-up of our lives; this idea helps clear the way to the path of least resistance that will lead to the manifestation of our most deeply held desires. This text will be of great use to individuals who seek to use their own lives as the driving force of their creative process.
There has been much written on the new creative economy, but most work focuses on the so-called 'creative class,' with lifestyle preferences that favor trendy new restaurants, mountain biking, and late night clubbing. This 'creative class,' flagship cultural destinations, and other forms of commodity-driven cultural production, now occupy a relatively uncritical place in the revitalization schemes of most cities up and down the urban hierarchy. In contrast, this book focuses on small- to medium-size post-industrial cities in the US, Canada, and Europe that are trying to redress the effects of deindustrialization and economic decline through cultural economic regeneration. It examines how culture-infused economic opportunities are being incorporated into planning in distinct ways, largely under the radar, in many working class communities and considers to what extent places rooted in an industrial past are able to envisage a different economic future for themselves. It questions whether these visions replicate strategies employed in larger cities or put forth plans that better suit the unique histories and challenges of places that remain outside the global limelight. Exploring the intersection between a cultural and sustainable economy raises issues that are central to how urban regeneration is approached and neighborhood needs and assets are understood. Case studies in this book examine spaces and planning processes that hold the possibility of addressing inequality by forging new economic and social relationships and by embarking on more inclusive and collaborative experiments in culture-based economic development. These examples often focus on building upon the assets of existing residents and broadly define creativity and talent. They also acknowledge both the economic and non-monetary value of cultural practices. This book maintains a critical edge, incorporating left critiques of mainstream creative economy theories and practices into empirical case studies that depart from standard cultural economy discourse. Structural barriers and unequal distributions of power make the search for viable urban development alternatives especially difficult for smaller post-industrial cities and risk derailing even creative grassroots initiatives. While acknowledging these obstacles, this book moves beyond critique and focuses on how the growing economy surrounding culture, the arts, and ecological design can be harnessed and transformed to best benefit such cities and improve the quality of life for its residents.
Winner of the 1927 Nobel Prize, Henri-Louis Bergson (1859 – 1941) was born in Paris, France, and emerged as one of the greatest French thinkers at the turn of the 20th century. He was a writer, academic, philosopher, and the originator of what came to be called process philosophy. "Creative Evolution" is Henri Bergson's greatest work. In it, the author demonstrates himself to be, most clearly, a philosopher of the process, as well as showing the influence of biology on his thought. This essay represented a break from the main philosophical currents of the late 19th century. Bergson's scientific and literary contributions were liberating, and his influence in the early 20th century was of great importance to his contemporaries and future generations. Although he took science very seriously, there was still room in Bergson's universe for intuition, morality, and religion, as well as for the mechanics of things. Henri Bergson was a talented philosopher and writer who built a bridge between literature, philosophy, and science, hence receiving a well-deserved Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible represents a comprehensive resource for researchers and practitioners interested in an emerging multidisciplinary area within psychology and the social sciences: the study of how we engage with and cultivate the possible within self, society and culture. Far from being opposed either to the actual or the real, the possible engages with concrete facts and experiences, with the result of transforming them. This encyclopedia examines the notion of the possible and the concepts associated with it from standpoints within psychology, philosophy, sociology, neuroscience and logic, as well as multidisciplinary fields of research including anticipation studies, future studies, complexity theory and creativity research. Presenting multiple perspectives on the possible, the authors consider the distinct social, cultural and psychological processes - e.g., imagination, counterfactual thinking, wonder, play, inspiration, and many others - that define our engagement with new possibilities in domains as diverse as the arts, design and business.