Creative Genius Research Articles

The impact of educational whiteboard videos on healthcare providers' self-efficacy to deprescribe.

The impact of educational whiteboard videos on healthcare providers' self-efficacy to deprescribe.

Art, Music, & Mashups: A View from the Bench on Creativity and Copyright

Creativity has captured human fascination for centuries. It has been said that “[t]here is little that shapes the human experience as profoundly and pervasively as creativity.” But what is creativity? Is it pure originality? Divine inspiration? Clever assimilation of existing ideas? Despite creativity’s central role in human progress, the term eludes finite definition.
 To Plato, creative inspiration was divine. In contrast, Kant thought that creative geniuses were not divinely inspired but born with a particular quickness of mind that fostered brilliance and innovation. T.S. Eliot recognized the critical role of borrowing in creative work, quipping, “[i]mmature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take; and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”
 In psychology, a leading theory of creativity requires inspiration from existing concepts. In his “associative theory” of creativity, Sarnoff Mednick posits that most of us have predictable, stereotypical associations with a given stimulus, while the creative among us are able to retrieve remote associations. For instance, although most associate “table” with “chair,” the creative might proffer “leg” or “food.” Defining creativity as a framework of novel associations between existing concepts, Mednick distinguishes originality from creativity, finding the former of little import.
 However different theorists and disciplines might define creativity, its outcomes are varied, enduring, and ever evolving. Creativity has brought us everything from Rodin’s sculptures and Van Gogh’s paintings to Newton’s scientific discoveries, from musical scores and movies to computer code.
 Where, then, does the law intersect with creativity? The United States Constitution directs Congress to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Born from that critical clause is the American approach to copyright. Recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as “the engine of free expression,” copyright law enriches “the general public through access to creative works.”
 To illustrate how copyright law fulfills its aims through the lens of art, music, and “mashups,” I invite you to accompany me on a short tour of copyright law’s dance with creativity by offering select examples from federal appellate decisions and a view from the bench.

An Interview with David Roediger

An Interview with David Roediger Jon K. Lauck JL: Where were you born? DR: The hospital in which I was born was in East St. Louis, Illinois. I have long been tempted to claim I'm "from" there, given how central that city has been to African American creative genius and to the tragedy of race in the Midwest. But in truth the life and livelihood of both my parents was in Columbia, Illinois, a dozen miles south. It was a village of two to three thousand, deeply German American, all-white, and built around grain milling and limestone quarrying. JL: How did your parents and grandparents come to be in this part of the country? DR: My family on both sides came to southern Illinois before the generation of my grandparents, overwhelmingly from what's now Germany but with one branch from Ireland. JL: A fairly large group of Germans immigrated to St. Louis in the early nineteenth century. Would you say your ancestors were part of that urban migration stream or were they more oriented toward farming and rural/small town living in southern Illinois? DR: My family connected to St. Louis much later, with some moving from Cairo, Illinois, and Columbia to the city for work in my parents' generation. The most lastingly German part of the family, my father's side, described itself as coming for religious reasons and to avoid conflicts during German unification. I think they sought rural life, but not a farm. Their religious bent, Missouri Synod Lutheranism, became the main arena for continued identification with one way of being German American. My paternal grandmother was a German speaker, though mostly without anyone to speak to. My mother's family was more [End Page 239] German than Irish in "blood" but just the opposite in identity. They lived near and centered life around an Irish American Catholic church in Cairo. JL: What was your parents' line of work? DR: My mother and her twin brothers became orphans before she was five, her mom dying as a result of childbirth and her dad in a railway work accident. She lived her first seventeen years in Cairo. Her aunts and grandmother sacrificed greatly to send her to two years of normal school for teacher training at Southern Illinois Normal College, now Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. She taught in Columbia for forty-nine years, mostly fourth grade. My dad followed his dad into work at the limestone quarry just outside Columbia. While his father worked as a mechanic, my father, back from the Navy and World War II, moved into the office as a bookkeeper. JL: What was your mother's maiden name and what did her family do for an occupation in Cairo? DR: She was born Mary Ann Lind. As noted, her dad was a railroad worker. Her mom was a housewife until dying very young. The aunts who worked to support the household in which she grew up had white-collar, or pink-collar, jobs. One kept books for a coal company and the other was a union phone operator, a job that required considerable skill and an absence of much accent. Opening those jobs to Black women was a demand of the Black United Front in Cairo, one that eventually succeeded but just before the positions were largely mechanized out of existence. When he served as lieutenant governor in the late 60s, Paul Simon sent Dick Durbin to fact find in Cairo. Durbin, now a U.S. senator from Illinois, was an aspiring Democratic politician then. The man taking him to his Cairo hotel room—we know this story because Durbin told it later to Barack Obama who made it public—warned that any use of the phone in the hotel would lead to phone operators relaying what was said to local white supremacists.1 JL: How did your parents meet and where and what year were you born? DR: My mother moved to Columbia to accept the first teaching job she was offered, just as the world war began. My father courted her as he was busily eating bananas in an attempt, ultimately successful, to meet the [End Page 240...

The Flip-flop Toys of Saarenald T. S. Yaawaisan in the Bryn Mawr Art and Artifact Collections

The Flip-flop Toys of Saarenald T. S. Yaawaisan in the Bryn Mawr Art and Artifact Collections

Tania León's Stride: A Polyrhythmic Life by Alejandro L. Madrid

Reviewed by: Tania León's Stride: A Polyrhythmic Life by Alejandro L. Madrid Jade Kastel Tania León's Stride: A Polyrhythmic Life. By Alejandro L. Madrid. (Music in American Life.) Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021. [xvi, 249 p. ISBN 9780252043949 (hardcover), $110; ISBN 9780252086014 (paperback), $24.95; ISBN 9780252052873 (e-book), price varies.] Music examples, photographs, bibliography, appendixes, index. The first comprehensive biography of composer, conductor, and educator Tania León (b. 1943) is arriving at a peak moment, an accented stride if you will, in León's career. She has been selected as an honoree in the 45th Kennedy Center Honors ceremony in December 2022—a celebration set to occur several months following the writing of this review. As attendees and viewers watch her don the familiar rainbow ribbon, it will likely ignite a desire for the back-story of this creative genius. Alejandro L. Madrid's biography is waiting to satiate this intrigue, chronicling León's journey from a poor neighborhood in Cuba, to accompanying the Dance Theatre of Harlem, to her conducting lessons with Leonard Bernstein, to collaborations with the American Composers Orchestra's series Sonidos de las Américas at Carnegie Hall, and to the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her orchestral work Stride. Tania León's Stride: A Polyrhythmic Life is one of more than 250 books in the longstanding series Music in American Life published by the University of Illinois Press. Madrid uses the introduction to explain how he chose the metaphor of counterpoint as a bibliographical form for this book, to place events in León's life in conversation with and show their relationship to significant historical and musical moments (p. 3). Just as rules and parameters undergird counterpoint exercises and compositions, Madrid and León likewise negotiated the project's scope and compositional parameters for how cultural, political, and personal events would work together in the biography. They arrived at some concrete rules, like leaving candid statements from friends or family still living in Cuba out of the book to avoid putting individuals at risk (p. 5). Madrid titled the chapters after musical motives to symbolize aspects of León's experiences (p. 7). Chapters are not arranged chronologically, allowing Madrid's counterpoint to position events side by side to show how a motif was present at various stages in León's life. The first chapter, "Tonic," as one might guess, includes home, family, and León's musical upbringing in the midst of the Cuban revolution in the 1960s. Photos of her grandparents (p. 16), eight-year-old León at the piano (p. 21), and a postcard from her piano teacher visiting Paris (p. 24) help illustrate the milieu of León's childhood in Cuba. "Modulation and Displacement" leans into the tensions between cubanos de adentro (Cubans residing on the island) and cubanos de afuera (Cubans living abroad). León's life modulated when she left Cuba as an exile, signaling an era when neither the US nor Cuba felt like a home key. The sadness and struggle of displacement is a theme throughout the book. Her passport was canceled as a result of leaving on one of the Vuelos de la Libertad (Freedom Flights; p. 35), which in turn led to León's missing the funeral of one of her foundational family figures, [End Page 407] her grandmother Mamota (p. 37). A section titled "1979: Seven Days That Shook Tania León" tells of her emotional return to Cuba to see her family for the first time in twelve years (p. 39). It was during this trip that León discovered how the Castro government silenced the accomplishments of creative exiles. León was determined to avoid taking sides in Cuban politics. Despite her apolitical stance, "her name and artist activities were still rendered invisible" in Cuba (p. 41). The 1970s feminist adage that "the personal is political" is a reality that León experienced all too frequently. Despite León's dislike of identity labels and her desire to remain neutral on the polarizing topic of the Cuban revolution—an effort to protect her family in Cuba...

“Better place no wit can finde”: The Compiler as Author in Early Modern Verse Miscellanies

This paper reflects on concepts of early modern authorship during the early modern period based on miscellanies and the roles of their compilors. The statement "I Compyle: I make a boke as an auctor doth" from Palsgrave’s Dictionary of French and English serves as a starting point: here, the compiler becomes a co-creative agent in that he plays with identities in composing the collection of poetry as much as with concepts and notions of individuality and community. This will be illustrated on the basis of a single poem, "Harpalus‘ Complaint" from Tottel’s Miscellany (1557) up unto the second edition of Englands Helicon (1614). A variety of interaction between several roles can be observed: compilors become co-authors themselves but also do readers when poems are newly arranged and integrated into a narrative. While Tottel’s Miscellany plays with identities and attributions, in Englands Helicon the (re)contextualisation of poems within newly created narratives is central. The paper thus shows that concepts of authorship around 1600 go beyond our contemporary notions that are often based on ideas of the creative genius: compilation becomes authorial business, and is creative.

Invisible Accelerators

To celebrate Leonardo’s 30th anniversary with MIT Press, a group gathered in Cambridge last November to consider legacy and futures at the crossroads of art, science, and technology. Participants reflected on how Leonardo at times exceeded expectations, overlooked or underestimated ideas, learned lessons along the way, and outlined emerging realities and altered futures on the horizon of the next several decades. The event served as a reminder that some conversations are less of a conclusive discussion and more of an ongoing exchange. In a sense, each issue of Leonardo adds to the discourse by engaging on the spectrum of legacy and futures, even as we are building both.In this first issue of Volume 56, Morteza Gharib, Chris Roh, and Flavio Noca explore the legacy of Leonardo da Vinci’s creative genius in attempting to visualize gravity as a form of acceleration. Looking back at this legacy also prompts questions looking forward regarding how creative visualization might accelerate the future.Da Vinci’s fascination with motion—how to capture the movement of water, clouds, falling hail, birds in flight—sparked imagination-fueled experiments and theories that precede by over a century the more precise equations of Galileo, Newton, and those who followed. His “equation of movement” drawings continue to raise fundamental questions about momentum: What moves us, how, when, and why? As an invisible force, gravity is only made visible by witnessing it in action, only visualized when things are set in motion, falling into their rightful place. What’s more, gravity is not neutral; gravity’s pull provides accelerated motion rather than constant velocity. Considering the “g” force as rate of change or acceleration makes me wonder what other invisible forces might be tracked or harnessed to accelerate change? How might the visualization of gravity reveal the possibility and potency of invisible forces as accelerators?In turbulent times, it is frighteningly easy to ignore invisible forces that abound and surround us, such as the power of human potential for imagination, inspiration, hope, trust, love. Yet these are exactly the times when it is most important to recognize and reinforce these forces as essential accelerators advancing the inherent human capacity for good. These unseen yet undeniable forces manifest in myriad ways through interdependent expressions of artistic creativity, scientific inquiry, technological innovation, collective generosity and hospitality. As the ultimate renewable energy resources, they generate momentum and means to develop the critical instruments, tools, and practices most needed today. These accelerators are essential to cultivate new and renewed support systems for humans to live and thrive on the planet. Like gravity, these accelerators are only made visible when activated. Our challenge is to magnify their magnetism that can actualize and optimize the human potential for positive change. The collaborative experiments and cross-disciplinary ideas of Leonardo’s community aim to do just that across our programs, partnerships, people, and publications, including the pages of this one. Leonardo continues to explore and expose living legacy, altered futures, and emerging realities, however hidden or entangled they may be.

IX Международная научная конференция «География искусства»

Geography of Art is an interdisciplinary synthesis inspired by the theme of creative genius comprehending and exploring space. The project began in 1994, with the first collection of works published at the Russian Heritage Institute under Yuri Vedenin’s guidance; the first conference was held in 2009. In recent years, the conferences have been held annually under the auspices of the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Arts, GITR Film and Television School, the Russian State University for the Humanities. The IX International Conference Geography of Art of 2023 united culturologists and art historians, geographers and philosophers from all over Russia and abroad. Traditionally, the participants discussed issues related to artistic space of literary and pictorial works, local texts, geographical and cartographic images, and virtual spaces created by art. As always, a separate section was devoted to “mastering,” using, modeling space in screen and photography art. An innovation in the scholarly dispute of the 2023 conference was the culturological and anthropological discourse on the visual image genesis and transformation from archaic to modern times, as well as the transgression of genius loci in the online media and virtual space.

Jesus in Context: Making Sense of the Historical Figure by David Wenham

Reviewed by: Jesus in Context: Making Sense of the Historical Figure by David Wenham Glenn B. Siniscalchi david wenham, Jesus in Context: Making Sense of the Historical Figure (Cambridge Studies in Religion, Philosophy, and Society; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021). Pp. xii + 249. Paper $29.99. David Wenham’s evenhanded, concise, and accessible book is dedicated to the basic themes of contemporary research on the historical Jesus. It is strongly recommended for introductory-level college courses that are related to historical approaches to the NT writings. One of the best aspects of Jesus in Context is the comprehensive coverage of most of the pertinent subjects in the current state of historical Jesus research. Whether it is the broad contours of the Roman Empire or the Jewish matrix from which Jesus and his first followers emerged in ancient Israel, there is plenty of informative and digestible material in this book. Wenham’s impartial coverage of the current findings of Jesus research is both ecumenically sensitive and consistent with the presuppositions of Christian theology. In this way, W.’s text subtly reports that christological orthodoxy and many well-established conclusions about the historical figure of Jesus can now be seen as comrades-in-arms. W. is keen on informing the reader where the consensus of NT scholars stand with respect to Jesus and his self-understanding; his teachings, actions, and miracles; and the immediate impact that he made on his followers. One might profit from understanding the political and socioreligious contexts in which Jesus lived (part 1) and some of the major themes that characterized his sayings and ministry (part 2). Toward the beginning of Jesus in Context, W. discusses the literary sources that ancient historians commonly use to study Jesus, the geographical and archaeological discoveries that seem pertinent for the relevant contemporary studies, and the history of ancient Israel and the Roman Empire up to and including the first century of the Common Era. [End Page 168] Wenham’s text is also excellent with regard to the fundamental reliability of the canonical Gospels. He rightly reports that form criticism, redaction criticism, the fascination with the second-century apocryphal Gospels, and the notion of oral traditions in ancient Palestine are not relevant enough concerns to lead one to conclude that the Christian Gospels are unreliable. Moreover, the current state of NT scholarship is not on the side of the revision-ist views of Rudolf Bultmann (who was known for separating the theology of the canonical Gospels from whatever history might lie behind them) or the older nineteenth-century scholars who saw the Gospels as fabricated myths. In the words of W., “The skepticism that ends up with scholars concluding or implying that much gospel tradition is the creation of the early Christian church rather than Jesus is curious, to say the least. It is much more likely that the main creative genius reflected in the gospel stories and teaching was the person who inspired the Christian movement, rather than . . . his followers” (p. 76). Rather, most of the newest questers in the guild endorse the historicity of Jesus and his various teachings about the reign of God, his baptism by John the Baptist, his wondrous miracles, and his resurrection from the dead. Recognizing that Paul’s letters were not understood as inspired texts by the original recipients, W. pointedly brings home the relevance of the apostle Paul for Jesus studies: “Both these early letters and others that followed, . . . give a lot of evidence about what the first Christians said and believed about Jesus. The letters are not telling the stories of Jesus, but are dealing with issues that had arisen in the churches; their references to Jesus are all the more revealing for being incidental” (p. 47). One of W.’s areas of special interest is that the apostle Paul and the four Gospel writers were not literarily dependent on one another. Despite that barrage of technical publications on early christology and historical criticism, W.’s book should be warmly welcomed as one of the best introductory texts on the current state of the basic questions on the historical Jesus and the reliability of the NT. In terms of accessibility and depth of...

Evaluating the Relevance and Significance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Indian Context

Hamlet has always been remembered as Shakespeare’s masterpiece creation. The play has enjoyed unmatched popularity among the audience of all ages. Since its first public performance, till date, the play has always remained relevant to the audience, in some way or the other. The history of Hamlet in India dates back to the colonial era. The play was first introduced by the troupes which performed it for the English traders. Later on, as a consequence of the colonial education, it became the part of the formal English education and travelled to the other groups of the society. Shakespeare was a big name even then, and the ever-praised elements of the play greatly influenced the local audience. With the development, translation and movie-adaptation also greatly helped in the wider circulation of the play, and it never went totally out of discussion. The present research paper focuses on some of the major elements which helped in this larger popularity of the play in a non-English-speaking country like India. It will try to analyse the relevance and significance of Hamlet to the audience in the Indian context. The focus will also be on the translation and the different kinds of adaptations of the play which have greatly helped in a wider circulation of Shakespeare’s creative genius. The paper begins with a general discussion of the play, mostly taking accounts from the English literary critics, and moves on to the analysis of the play in the Indian context.

Serhii Pylypenko is a "student of the revolution". The Ukrainian writer's years of study at St. Volodymyr University

Purpose: based on sources of personal origin, archival documents and historiographical achievements, to investigate the student years of study at the University of St. Volodymyr of the Ukrainian writer and public figure Serhii Volodymyrovych Pylypenko. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity and systematicity, which made it possible to consider the processes of development of Ukrainian higher education at the beginning of the 20th century. Relying on the deductive method and establishing cause-and-effect relationships, it was possible to analyze the impact of the scientific and educational process on the development of the personality of Serhiy Pylypenko as a representative of the Ukrainian national elite in the 1920s –1930s. Scientific novelty. For the first time in historiography. comprehensively analyzed the student years of one of the key figures of the Ukrainian cultural life of the first third of the 20th century. – Serhiy Pylypenko, as a stage in the formation of his personality and creative genius. The influence of higher education in the revolutionary years on the formation of the constellation of the Ukrainian national elite was traced through a specific anthropometric measurement. The relevance stems from the task of comprehensively defining the role and place of the representatives of the "Shooted Revival" in the development of Ukrainian cultural life in the first third of the last century during complex revolutionary and state-building processes. The formation and development of the personal and creative potential of the Ukrainian national elite dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. and requires a careful study of the synthesis of educational influence and revolutionary events on the construction of the creative layer, which later became the driving force of the Ukrainian National Renaissance. Conclusions. Sources of personal origin, "Personal file of a student of the University of St. Volodymyr Serhiy Pylypenko" and other documents covered in as much detail as possible the peculiarities of student life and the educational process in one of the most powerful educational institutions of the Kyiv region at the beginning of the 20th century. The analysis made it possible to single out both the general features of the years of "revolutionary studentship" in the 1910s, which played their role in the formation of the Ukrainian national elite as a whole, and to determine their influence on the formation of the personality of the "ploughman" of Ukrainian literature Serhiy Pylypenko.

Jazz Standard as Archive

The jazz standard remains an enduring part of the tradition of jazz performance and pedagogy. Contemporary jazz scholarship has tended to focus on improvisation as a practice and jazz-as-lived-experience and, while the jazz standard repertoire has occasionally been the subject of study the relationship between the standard repertoire and the ‘language’ or style of jazz has not been theorised. In this article I argue that the distinctive style of jazz improvisation is at least in part, determined by the characteristics of its shared repertoire and the statements that have accrued around that repertoire. I borrow Foucault’s conception of the archive to propose a reexamination of the historical progression of ideas that troubles the narrative of the individual creative genius and of jazz as the normative condition of improvisation. In this genealogical context, the jazz standard is positioned as an archive of a particular body of thought, a way of organizing and understanding the transmission, evolution and connection of ideas over time. The intended effect is to provide an alternative perspective on creativity in jazz, and a theorisation of an idea that is already implicit in jazz pedagogy and practice.

Evaluation Method of Rationality of Creative Genius Cultivation Pattern Based on a BP Neural Network.

In order to realize the evaluation of the rationality of an innovative talent training mode, an evaluation model of the rationality of the innovative talent training mode based on a BP neural network is proposed. On the basis of clarifying the principle of the BP neural network model, according to the method of parameter multisource control analysis, the multi-objective characteristic analysis of the rationality of the innovative talent training mode is realized to measure the difference and balance between the two variables of the rationality of the innovative talent training mode. A BP neural network algorithm is designed to find the best feature subset, and a feature sequence sampling and recombination model is constructed. Through reliability evaluation and nonparametric quantitative feature estimation, quantitative analysis and evaluation of the rationality of the innovative talent training mode are realized. The test results show that the confidence level and reliability of the rationality evaluation of the innovative talent training mode using this method are high.

THE CONCEPT COLOUR IN ESSAYS ON ART WRITTEN IN ENGLISH: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF JOHN BERGER’S AND JED PERLS’S ESSAYS ABOUT HENRI MATISSE

Introduction. The paper is devoted to the analysis of the concept COLOUR verbalized in the essays about Henri Matisse written by John Berger and Jed Perl. The context for the linguistic studies of the concept of COLOUR is provided through a brief outline of the linguistic approaches to the analysis of this concept and identification of the relation of the research on the verbalized concept COLOUR with the attempts to solve the question about the connection between language and thought as one of the key linguistic questions. The conception of A. Prikhodko about different types of concepts depending on their roles in constituting certain types of discourse is employed to identify the concept COLOUR as autochthonous, having the key role in the art-critical discourse. The purpose of the study is reveal the similarities and differences in the verbalization of the concept COLOUR in Berger’s and Perl’s essays. Methodological foundations of the research are the principles of the cognitive-discursive paradigm in modern linguistics. The following methods were used to analyse the data: analysis of definitions of lexemes, componential analysis, interpretation in the context, cognitive and pragmatic interpretation, comparative analysis. The study has revealed that the essays share the positive evaluation of the art of Matisse. However, the essays have different communicative aims with Berger striving to explain the creative genius of Matisse and Perl intending to get the readers interested in Matisse’s retrospective exhibition. Thus the concept COLOUR plays the key role in Berger’s essays as a means of interpretation of Matisse’s art, whereas it shares this role with three other concepts in Perl’s essay. The analysis has revealed a number of the similarities in the actualization of the concept COLOUR in both essays. This concept is verbalized by the lexeme colour / color or the names of specific colours; in both essays the conceptual metaphor COLOUR IS SOUND is used; in both essays there are contexts of the actualization of the conceptCOLOUR which perform such functions: discussing the main principle of how Matisse used his colours, placing Matisse in the context of the art styles and comparing Matisse with other artists. Such similarities make the conclusion that it is possible to provide some sort of objective, well-grounded interpretation of the works of art plausible.

Mélancolie, illusion diabolique et création poétique

The sixteenth century inherited three discourses on melancholy: the medical, philosophical, and religious ones. While the first presented it as a mental illness linked to a disorder of the humours, the second, with the rediscovery of Aristotle’s Problem XXX, saw it as a sign of creative genius, and the third reminded us that it was, according to Saint Jerome’s expression, the balneum diaboli; it allowed Satan to take possession of the patient’s mind, causing him to hallucinate. So how can we distinguish the melancholy of the genius from the pathology of the same name, especially when the latter is associated with the devil? The devil’s ability to create illusory worlds on the border between dream and reality coincides with Renaissance artists’works populated by ghosts, monsters, witches and demons. Could not these scenes, presented both as manifestations of the devil and projections of the hallucinated mind, be linked to the figure of the melancholic artist?

Le livre technique avant le XXe siècle: À l'échelle du monde [Technical books before the 1900s: On a global scale] ed. by Liliane Hilaire-Pérez et al.

Reviewed by: Le livre technique avant le XXe siècle: À l'échelle du monde [Technical books before the 1900s: On a global scale] ed. by Liliane Hilaire-Pérez et al. Emmanuelle Chapron (bio) Le livre technique avant le XXe siècle: À l'échelle du monde [Technical books before the 1900s: On a global scale] Edited by Liliane Hilaire-Pérez, Valérie Nègre, Delphine Spicq, and Koen Vermeir, with the collaboration of Konstantinos Chatzis. Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2017. Pp. 502. This collective volume tackles what is undeniably a blind spot in the history of books: the history of the technical book, which is studied much less than scientific books. The thirty-two contributions do not offer a synthesis but a set of insights into a long-term and global history (including the Chinese and Japanese perspectives as a counterpoint to Europe). If we already have studies on certain types of works, such as dance treatises, language manuals, and marine books, interestingly, this volume takes an inclusive approach, embracing a production heterogeneous in its forms, aims, and audiences. The absence of a rigid structure—thematic, chronological, or spatial—within the five broadly titled sections allows comparisons between the subjects, often from different historiographic fields, and reveals three compelling themes. The first is the importance of political factors in the development of the technical book, such as territorial control and the stimulation of technological innovation (by the Dutch government in the seventeenth century and the French Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in the nineteenth century). Many contributions highlight the links between the print output and [End Page 904] technical schools founded around the same time. Other authors show how the formalization of technical knowledge through books contributed to the visibility and professionalization of trading communities. This process is evidenced in both institutionalized (Académie Royale de Danse in Paris, founded in 1661) and noninstitutionalized (dance and language teachers in Italy and Northern Europe) contexts. The second theme is the "reductive art" issue. Writing an account of bodily movements, for example those of a dancer, presupposed the existence of appropriate discursive and visual technologies, whether these were invented for the purpose or borrowed from other fields of knowledge. The three contributions on dance exemplify this quest for technicality via vocabulary, symbol, image, and viewpoint. The different forms of image insertion in technical books will be of interest to all book historians. Many contributions underline the constant tension between the temptation to elevate technical activity to the same ranking as the arts and sciences through the abstraction and formalization of knowledge (ornamental arts, archaeology), and the affirmation of a dimension that cannot be reduced to codification, such as experience in the field (artillery) and creative genius (choreography). The third theme concerns technical books' uses and readers. The authors show how public authorities encouraged the production and use of widely accessible textbooks in the nineteenth century, for example to promote sericulture in Japan and modernize agriculture in Spain. Publishers created and expanded the technical books market to a broader nonspecialist audience through "product innovations." For example, in eighteenthcentury Paris, Jombert published books on artillery that could easily be carried around in the field; and a century later, Cramer published guides and almanacs for colonists settling in the Pittsburgh area. Reissues are an indicator of a successful publishing strategy, which sometimes involved transforming a text's status over a long period, as in the case of the Bâtiment des recettes (Palace of recipes) between the 1500s and 1700s. "Technology entrepreneurs," as they were aptly called by editors, converted secrets into commercial inventions and the accompanying written documentation familiarized a wider public with technical expressions. The gap between the texts' intellectual claims and the sometimes barely literate target audience raises the question of transmission modes, which were not necessarily direct. Some authors have taken up the challenge of identifying individual readers, for instance through the ex libris on the Vignole books used by journeymen in the building trade from the Renaissance onward. Beyond the material traces, stains, and wear and tear, which prove their "operationalization," the specific uses of these technical works remain complicated to grasp. Future research should focus on this point...

A Comparative Study of Manoj Das’s Akasara Isara (Odia) and The Escapist (English)

There are very few bilingual writers of repute in the country and Manoj Das distinctly stands as a prolific writer who has carved a niche for himself in this arena. In fact, he is one of the greatest writers of the country, who has given a new direction to the bilingual writing and proved his brilliance through his great short stories and novels both in Odia and English languages with his creative genius. He is one of the widely acclaimed bilingual story tellers of the country whose writings have been accepted by the readers for their novelty of thoughts and flawless narration. Many prestigious literary awards like the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Padma Shri and the Saraswati Samman and many more have been bestowed upon him. He is in fact one of the towering literary personalities in the Indian English fictions arena who has been instrumental in establishing a native identity. His in-depth analysis of human emotions and their universal appeal is something that is amazingly brilliant in his writings. He has been widely acclaimed and appreciated for his literary genius and creative brilliance. The present research article attempts a comparative study of these two novels which are unique with their thematic treatment as well as the subtle realities combined with powerful philosophical messages. His novel Akasara Isara (1997) which originally appeared in Odia and later translated by the author himself in English as The Escapist (2001) describes the human tragedy against the backdrop of an all-pervading destiny. The article discusses such issues of translation and bilingual writing. It also focuses on the cultural aspects.

It Does Not Compute: Copyright Restriction on Tax Deduction for Developer’s Donation of Software

Great amounts of wealth can be represented by intellectual property (“IP”), including computer software. Computer software creators, and other inventors, artists and authors, may desire to enthusiastically support their favorite charitable endeavors. The tax consequences for the creative genius donating his or her IP to charity will depend on whether his or her creation is protected by patent, trade secret or trademark on the one hand, or copyright on the other. In general, the donor of a patent, trade secret or trademark enjoys favorable tax treatment – he or she is entitled to claim an income tax deduction for the full fair market value of the IP donated. In contrast, as a result of the Tax Reform Act of 1969, the donor of a copyright is not allowed to claim a full fair market value deduction – instead, he or she may claim a deduction only for his or her cost basis in the copyright (which may be very small, or nothing). The following example demonstrates the different income tax results possible.

A Comparison of the Definition of Intelligence in Psychology and Psymentology

Psymentology, or the supra-holistic approach to the study of the mind (mento) and psyche (psychology), is an Iranian complementary medicine founded by Mohammad Ali Taheri that identifies the mind and the psyche as distinct and separate from one another. Psymentology holds a very broad and supra-holistic view of human beings and the universe and aims to identify the various existential dimensions of the mind as well as the psyche and to heal the maladies related to both. In psychology, what is known as IQ (Intelligence Quotient), representing the potential of learning, computation, language, comprehension, memory, and abstract reasoning, from the standpoint of Psymentology, are considered “Wisdom” (Aql) or “Apparent Intelligence” that are aspects of Wisdom (Aql) and are called WQ (Wisdom Quotient). In Psymentolgoy, “creativity” is defined as the “Inner Intelligence” (Bātin), a potential in all humans that needs to be activated. This activation requires a high degree of thirst for knowledge and discovery of Truth, in addition to other measures. According to the Theory of Intelligence in Psymentology, Intelligence is the ability to create and bring about new information in various fields; Wisdom (Aql), on the other hand, is the ability to apply, make use of, and utilize anything; while Memory is the ability to store and recall information. The ability to memorize information and events and the recollection of them is represented as MQ (Memory Quotient), which in Psymentology, unlike in psychology, is not considered among the faculties of Wisdom (Aql), but it does function in relation to Wisdom and Intelligence. Most current education systems are based on a memory-oriented approach that relies on rote memorization of the material. However, it is imperative for the education systems to be creativity-oriented if they are to foster the growth and development of individuals and help human societies thrive and flourish. For this to occur, it is necessary to activate the creative potential in children and adolescents, which is not activated through simple memorization of content; otherwise, their mental capabilities will gradually diminish over time and will be replaced by stereotypical teachings that are dry and devoid of any creative spark. Although with respect to scientific discoveries, human intuition is known to have elicited creativity, to this day, no method has been proposed to cultivate and enhance this faculty. Psymentology aims to introduce novel methods to make accessing constructive and productive insights and intuitions possible that would promote human growth and evolution and would lead to the activation of the creative genius in individuals and the emergence of new ideas in various areas of knowledge.

Followers Of Humanity: Khusrao And Kabir

The conflict between religion and the world has intensified man's curiosity about the true purpose of life. This credit has been with the people and the properties, both Hindu and Muslim, and when the followers of both the Dharmas have focused on one center, it has been the center of humanity. This axis has given the idea of ​​unity in abundance. Mixed civilization has been given priority and spirit of equality has been nurtured. This conflict may be between Aryans and Dravidians, Buddhists, Jains, Brahmins or Hindus, Muslims but this conflict has also paved the way reconciliation and unity. Human love, tolerance and brotherhood have been promoted..One of the most popular saint poets of India, Hazrat Amir Khusrau was a truly multifaceted creative genius. While it is common knowledge that he created Khayal and Qawwali not many know that he wrote in more than a dozen styles of creative expressions. Till date he remains a great mystic, a Sufi saint, a Sufi poet. His works were source of pride and happiness for many. On the other hand, one of the most loved and revered mystics of India, Saint Kabirdas was a fearless poet, reformer, critic, devotee and spiritual master all rolled into one. His works continue to inspire people from all walks of life beyond the divides of age, nationality, religious preferences and cultural differences.