Creative Imagination Research Articles

Radically hopeful visions: Futuring for institutional anti-racism work

This paper describes how a reparative futures approach alters the orientations and methods of institutional DEI work and generates a different set of affective, joyful outcomes. New paths forward emerge when past injustice is examined to imagine better futures. This activity resulted in novel perspectives on what a holistic, inclusive, anti-racist campus community could look like someday. We introduced the creative, optimistic, and long-term perspective of futuring into a year-long reparative anti-racism project to advance institutional diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts at an arts college. Reparative DEI processes, centered in tenets of anti-racism, rarely engage creative imagination to look forward. In addition, futures tools are seldom designed for the critical consciousness of reparative processes, which must be rooted in re-examining and challenging established narratives. The work shared here demonstrates an opportunity to explore both perspectives. Our experience reveals that reparative futures approaches alter both the feel of the process of approaching DEI work and establish a different set of outcomes. We propose that the radically hopeful visions created through critically conscious reparative futures practices offer an additional way to engage with reparative processes, bringing in creativity and consideration of relational connections.

Интермедиальные приёмы репрезентации образа художника в рассказах Г. Миллера «Нью-Йорк и обратно» и Ч. Буковски «Рабочий день»

The aim of the study is to identify the intermedial means involved in depicting the image of a creative personality represented in the stories “Glittering Pie” (1935) by H. Miller and “A Working Day” (1972) by Ch. Bukowski, contributing to their interpretation, which will cover the works plot-wise, texturally and epistemologically. The study is original in that it is the first to compare H. Miller’s and Ch. Bukowski’s stories from an intermedial perspective. The way in which different visual media techniques find their embodiment in a literary text, being present in it not only as a static reference, but also as an active component influencing the formation of writing and images, is of particular interest in the analysis of the works. The visual in Miller’s story manifests itself through the techniques of surrealism, impressionism and cinema. In the case of Bukowski’s story, the visual is realized through the forms of pop art, photographic stylization and a reference to the subjects of paintings by the artist E. Hopper. The results show that the intermedial techniques involved in the stories make it possible to determine the writers’ connection with the aesthetic projects of modernism and postmodernism. While Miller’s story shows the features of modernist art associated with self-reflection, originality of creative vision and the gap between the ordinary and the sacred, in Bukowski’s story, there are certain features of postmodernism represented by symbolic reduction, a decrease in aesthetic pathos around the artist and his creative activity, as well as thematization of everyday life and banality.

Emotional Transportation and Identification in Screenwriting: A Pilot Study

Abstract Within the academic domain focused on the artistic practice of screenwriting, this exploratory study assesses the presence of emotional transportation and character identification processes within the solitary screenwriter’s creative imagination during the writing process. Screen-writing research is facing a dichotomy of the screenwriter who embodies both the role of a narrative specialist and that of a visual storytelling poet. Screenwriters often work in isolation, even in collaborative projects, leading to a tension between solitary work and collaborative roles. Narrative theories in screenwriting have mainly centered on identification of the audience, neglecting the screenwriter’s perspective. However, screenwriting can serve as a platform for experimentation and a reflection of new ideas, insights, and hands-on experience, meeting the demand for a systematic understanding of the writer’s processes. The results of this study provide preliminary insights into the mechanisms of emotional transportation, identification, and eureka moments in screenwriting practice. The study suggests that the transportation effect in writers is induced by a feeling of security, which arises from the limitations of the assignment. The data also suggests that pressure can lead to more original dramaturgical solutions. As such, this experimental pilot study already sheds light on the screenwriter’s artistic process. Yet, it has limitations, including a small number of informants and the novelty of the research method.

Применение агентной модели интерактивной визуализации для создания средств визуального управления онтологическими данными

The paper presents an agent-based model of interactive visualization and proposes a method for its application in the development of the ontological data visual management tool. The process of user interaction with the visualization is represented as a state graph, where each node is a separate visualization. The initial state is known, and the final state is formed in the process of user interaction with the ontological data visual management tool. Each intermediate visualization from the state graph is transferred into the multidimensional Euclidean data space formed on the basis of the visualized ontology, which allows to calculate weighting coefficients on the state graph edges and to search the graph using known algorithms. Application of the model allows for a reduction in the labor intensity of executing user scripts due to the reduction of step-by-step visualization creation to the task of searching in the state space.

Creativity of the teacher and student in the context of working on voice in spoken language

This article is a reflection by practitioners working in the field of vocal pedagogy. The authors are professional actresses who, using their voice as a tool in their stage work, transfer their personal experiences, supported by pedagogical knowledge, preparing individuals without experience in public speaking to work with their voice. The voice, as a fundamental tool of interpersonal communication, plays a key role in communicating individual emotions, intentions, and meanings. Therefore, working on its improvement requires a creative approach from both teachers and workshop participants. The article is dedicated to the analysis of the potential of voice emission workshops perceived in the context of a tool stimulating the development of participants’ creativity and individuality. Also, this is an attempt to point out the non-obvious benefits that participants achieve. Empirical studies conducted over the years in the context of working on voice in spoken language lead to the conclusion that workshops dedicated to voice emission support the individual development of participants and teachers by triggering their creativity and stimulating imagination.

Theological Aporia and the Cultivation of Desire: Reading Eriugena’s Creatio Ex Nihilo through an Islamic Theo-Poetics

This comparative theological article expands on John Thiel’s article on aporias in theological method. Through an Islamic theo-poetics, it complements the import of hermeneutics in theological method with poetics. In an Islamic theo-poetics, aporias are inverted: they are not impassable walls, but “liminal spaces” through which creative imagination and revelation emerge. Reading Eriugena’s Periphyseon through two Persian love lyrics by Ḥāfiẓ (and a later commentary) draws out the poetics of the former, a dialogue often described as an exercise in dialectical reasoning. Attention to the poetics of aporetics offers another way to understand the role of aporia in theology: to cultivate (infinite) desire for God. Theology is a theo-poetic reflection on the mystery of our communal theo(poïe)sis. Along the way, I indicate how theology construed as poetics—not merely hermeneutics—makes theological aesthetics possible, underscores the role of affective knowledge, and reveals how Eriugena the poet shaped Eriugena the dialectician.

Philanthropy Fever from Below: On the Possibilities of a Good Life in Late-Socialist China

For ordinary people in late-socialist China, the good life seems to be singularly shaped: in the future and the elsewhere, it is oriented toward one's own well-being and the well-being of future generations. This article aims to open up discussion about the different possibilities that ordinary people have for shaping a good life, despite and within the restrictions caused by their limited possession of power or wealth. The exploration draws from my long-term ethnographic fieldwork on caogen gongyi 草根公益 (grassroots philanthropy) in southeast China. It shows that care for the well-being of people beyond one's immediate family in the form of organized charity and volunteerism offers opportunities for many ordinary people with limited resources to engage socially and politically in ways that are central to their experience of the good life in contemporary China. Unlike the better-off philanthropists and volunteers, whose philanthropic activities tend to enhance their status and dominance, the ordinary people presented in this article experience major tensions between providing for their family and caring for others in society, between ensuring the material conditions of the good life and being able to live an ethical life as a contributing member of society and to be socially recognized for doing so. Hence pursuing the good life can require extremely hard work and be emotionally draining for many ordinary people. Philanthropic engagement does not lead to substantial and sustainable material returns, yet the creative imaginations and public actions of ordinary people open up possibilities for valorizing life in social arenas, despite and within the prevailing economic valorization of life.

Roadways of Fire: Cosmopolitan Critics and Modern Gas Lighting in W. B. Yeats’s John Sherman (1891)

This article argues that W. B. Yeats uses his early novel John Sherman (1891) to identify and interrogate a non-national model of poetry he newly conceived to be global in its significance. Previously Yeats had attacked Ireland's ‘West Britons’ for seeking to emulate the Anglocentric critical standards set by Matthew Arnold, and so ignoring the beauty and truths of their supposedly provincial homeland. Such art of the ‘critical’ rather than ‘creative imagination’, as typified for Yeats by the minor English poet William Watson, is dramatized in the overaestheticized meditations of the character William Howard from John Sherman. As Howard's ruminations on the Irish landscape proceed, however, his critical spirit develops from the cautious, Anglocentric anti-nativism of Watson's Arnoldian ‘scholar poet’ into the iconoclasm of Oscar Wilde's critic-artist. More radical in his intellectual ambitions and truly extra-national in his affiliations, Howard is galvanized to adopt this new, cosmopolitan attitude by the dispersed forces of technological modernization that had reached Ireland's western seaboard. In reaction to the all-pervasive urban lighting that stimulates Howard's worldly reflections, Yeats's gaze turns inward in the novel's poetic counterpart, seeking to locate the grounds of the Irish creative imagination in the occult dark of Innisfree.

IMPACT OF MICROBIAL ART ON ADVANCING STUDENTS' CULTURING PROFICIENCY IN MICROBIOLOGY EDUCATION

Abstract: Microbial art, an emerging trend in microbiology education, integrates artistic activities to enhance critical thinking and deepen comprehension of intricate scientific concepts. This study examines the effect of microbial art activity on students' understanding and competency of microbiological culturing methods. A qualitative content analysis was employed to evaluate the comprehension of 108 students who participated in the microbial activity, which encompassed the assessment of both their visual creations and written reports. The relationship between students' understanding of bacterial culturing techniques and the quality of their artworks was assessed using descriptive statistics and Pearson's correlation coefficient. The quality of the artwork was classified as poor, moderate, and good, reflecting students' cultivation skills, with 53% at a moderate level, 30% good, and only 17% having poor artwork quality. According to the analysis of the students' written reports, it was found that 71% of the students exhibited a strong understanding of the activity, while 29% showed an average level of understanding. However, there was no correlation found between students' understanding and the quality of their artwork. This study demonstrates that incorporating microbial art into science education can improve student cultivation techniques by providing an engaging and creative way to practice microbiology skills.
 Keywords: Artworks; Culturing technique; Enhance; Microbial art; Microbiology education

Three personality facets can relate to increased academic output

We studied how personality traits relate to academic output indicators. Three-hundred Russian academic authors agreed to participate in the study. They completed the Big Five Inventory-2 online; we gathered their h-index, publication counts, and citation counts using the core Russian Science Citation Index database. Three personality facets-Creative Imagination, Productiveness, and Emotional Volatility- showed persistent incremental effects across the academic indicators. Moreover, Emotional Volatility interacted with either Creative Imagination or Productiveness meaning that the authors showed greater academic performance when their creativity or persistence in pursuing goals were accompanied by larger mood swings. Based on these findings and extant literature, we propose an emotional volatility hypothesis, which complements tenets of the normative theory of increased academic output.

A LETTER FROM SPECIAL EDITION EDITOR IN CHIEF - DR. CATHERINE HARPER

The contributors to this special issue consider how urban, rural, local, and global communications, experimental and innovative media used alongside indigenous knowledge and folkloric craft practices, respect for the disparity of human identity, heritage, tradition, and culture, and the importance of documenting, preserving, and protecting, and enhancing creativity and cultural diversity is essential for our collective future. They presented their research at the Woxsen and Banaras Hindu Universities’ international conference ‘Cultural Diversity for Sustainable Development in Art and Design’ in June 2023.The context of their work is the sophisticated networks across nations that link product ideation, production, consumption, post-consumption management, and policy in highly complex chains. These chains see wealth move upwards, often at the expense of those lower in the chain, those nearer to the making of the products, arguably those with the greatest creative talent and technical skill. In an inverted triangle of development, the advancement of economies is often at the expense of the sustenance of communities, resources, histories, and individual humans.Radical, and in some cases painful, adjustments to how we live are no longer ‘design decisions’ or ‘sustainable choices’. While we have considered for some time that perhaps we need to slow down, take time to breath, consume less, and cease striving, we have not yet come collectively and universally to understanding that advancement is not always positive. We have not yet concluded that we are operating an obsolete and unsustainable business model, and we have not yet seen holistically that thinking in terms of a smaller Earth is conceivably our only solution.These papers challenge us to think about why humans first created, so that their ‘things’ were not only functional and utilitarian. Communities from distinct geographic regions across the world developed decorative, expressive, ritualised, secular, and sacred objects from early in human development. Individuals sustained themselves, their communities, their beliefs, and their environments by applying their creative imaginations to their tools, coverings, shelters, surroundings, this growing rapidly in sophistication, purpose and embeddedness as human societies and cultures evolved.Our ancestors preserved cultural diversity without even thinking of it, both in their material surroundings and civilisations, but also through storytelling that illuminated their spirit world and imaginations. They gave us the myths and legends, superstitions and belief systems, ideologies and moralities that persist into our folk traditions, societal customs, disparate identities, and artisan-based cultures today. This excellent Special Issue resists a homogenised globalist culture that erases the diversity nourishing vital philosophical, intellectual, instinctual, or imaginary concepts that make up the immaterial and intangible aspects of sustainable development that we so need to protect.

Convergence and divergence in science and practice of urban and rural forest restoration.

Forest restoration has never been higher on policymakers' agendas. Complex and multi-dimensional arrangements across the urban-rural continuum challenge restorationists and require integrative approaches to strengthen environmental protection and increase restoration outcomes. It remains unclear if urban and rural forest restoration are moving towards or away from each other in practice and research, and whether comparing research outcomes can help stakeholders to gain a clearer understanding of the interconnectedness between the two fields. This study aims to identify the challenges and opportunities for enhancing forest restoration in both urban and rural systems by reviewing the scientific evidence, engaging with key stakeholders and using an urban-rural forest restoration framework. Using the Society for Ecological Restoration's International Principles as discussion topics, we highlight aspects of convergence and divergence between the two fields to broaden our understanding of forest restoration and promote integrative management approaches to address future forest conditions. Our findings reveal that urban and rural forest restoration have convergent and divergent aspects. We emphasise the importance of tailoring goals and objectives to specific contexts and the need to design different institutions and incentives based on the social and ecological needs and goals of stakeholders in different regions. Additionally, we discuss the challenges of achieving high levels of ecological restoration and the need to go beyond traditional ecology to plan, implement, monitor, and adaptively manage restored forests. We suggest that rivers and watersheds could serve as a common ground linking rural and urban landscapes and that forest restoration could interact with other environmental protection measures. We note the potential for expanding the creative vision associated with increasing tree-containing environments in cities to generate more diverse and resilient forest restoration outcomes in rural settings. This study underscores the value of integrative management approaches in addressing future forest conditions across the urban-rural continuum. Our framework provides valuable insights for policymakers, researchers, and decision-makers to advance the field of forest restoration and address the challenges of restoration across the urban-rural continuum. The rural-urban interface serves as a convergence point for forest restoration, and both urban and rural fields can benefit from each other's expertise.

Ghostly ruins: conflict memories, narratives, and placemaking among Lebanese diasporas in Montreal

ABSTRACTThe memory of past conflicts remains largely obliterated among the Lebanese diasporas in Montreal. Nonetheless, it invariably resurfaces in public performance of the Lebanese identity in the city as well as in people’s life stories. This ambivalent interplay underlines the role of remembrance and forgetting among diasporic populations in the construction of their local attachment to their places of residence. Stories as well as silences become ways of negotiating one’s presence and belonging. Building on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Montreal between 2017 and 2019, this contribution approaches war memories from a renewed perspective. Instead of examining their role in the mobilization and transformation of group boundaries, it resituates the politics of traumatic memories among Lebanese diasporas in the everyday negotiation of their presence in Montreal. In doing so, this article unravels how memory practices in diasporic lifeworlds also open creative imaginations that contest essentialized conceptions of identity and belonging.

Bentuk Ekspresi Emosional Tokoh Utama dalam Kumpulan Cerpen Lelaki-Lelaki Tanpa Perempuan Karya Haruki Murakami: Kajian Psikologi Sastra

Literary works are imaginative creations of authors reflecting upon the social environment of life. Literary works arise from contemplating the meanings and essence of life experienced, felt, witnessed, and expressed. This study examines the forms of emotional expression of the main characters in the "Lelaki-Lelaki Tanpa Perempuan" short story collection by Haruki Murakami. This study aims to describe the forms of emotional expression experienced by the main characters in the "Lelaki-Lelaki Tanpa Perempuan" short story collection by Haruki Murakami. The analysis of the forms of emotional expression of the main characters in the short story collection of "Lelaki-Lelaki Tanpa Perempuan" used a literary psychology approach. Emotional expression is rooted in inner conflict as it pertains to the psyche of an individual. The data for this study consisted of quoted sentences that represent the emotional expression of the main characters in the "Lelaki-Lelaki Tanpa Perempuan" short story collection by Haruki Murakami. A qualitative descriptive method was used to analyze the forms of emotional expression of the main characters. Data collection techniques involved reading and note-taking. Data analysis techniques included data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The validity of the data was employed through theoretical triangulation. This study reveals various forms of emotional expression of the main characters in the "Lelaki-Lelaki Tanpa Perempuan" short story collection by Haruki Murakami. These forms of emotional expression include disappointment, resignation, curiosity, worry, anxiety, confusion, fear, and sadness. Keywords: Short Story Collection of "Lelaki-Lelaki Tanpa Perempuan", Emotional Expression, Inner Conflict, Literary Psycholog

IBN ARABI'S CREATIVE IMAGINATION IN ODHY POETRY OF SUFISM FIGURES IN HIS ANTHOLOGY RAHASIA SANG GURU SUFI

This research aims to analyze the Sufism figure in Odhy poetry anthology Rahasia Sang Guru Sufi through Ibn Arabi's creative imagination. The Sufism figure has an important role in the Sufism discourse, and creative imagination is related to literary discourse. Ibn Arabi’s creative imagination combined indicated Ibn Arabi himself and his imagination. Ibn Arabi’s thought is compatible with the literature and applied as a theoretical approach to mystical literature, namely the work of Odhy, the Sufism figure poetry. Those terms denote part and relate to Sufism studies, especially a murshid (guru) to guide the spiritual guidance through stations until the peak. Those path finders indicate the creative imagination that Odhy used in his poetry collection; at the same time, the literature has related to that imagination. This research reveals the mutual connection between literature and Islamic mysticism based on imagination. This figure is a person who wrote down his role in the discourse and history of Sufism. The data on Sufism figures are collected through the descriptive method from the primary source of those anthologies. Besides, the historical approach explains his poetries in those anthologies. This research found the Sufism figures as a thought in Islamic Mysticism in history through Ibn Arabi’s creative imagination and an image resource in literature.

Eusebius and Florestan, Pierrot and Harlequin

This video and article are inspired by Robert Schumann’s use of characterization in his music and writings, and the affinities of these sometimes kaleidoscopic and multiple musical and critical perspectives with theatre, fragmentary scenographies, and costume. Drawing on the traits of Schumann’s own characters Florestan, Euesbius, Master Raro, as well as other personas such as Harlequin and Pierrot, I have aimed, in my audiovisual collage and performance of a hypothetical 4th movement to Schumann’s 1851 Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in A minor (Op. 105), to create a mediation between disparate aspects of the music, envisioned as personality fragments scattered in the landscape of the piece. The video itself is a meditation on, and an outcome of the realities of the pandemic, and the isolation that intruded in such a sustained manner on my personal and professional life. The video is an impromptu assemblage of pre-pandemic footage and photography combined to create a collective virtual chamber music experience representing an internal world haunted by dissonant multiple characters. In some ways, I echo in performance certain suggestive strains of Schumann’s own creative imagination and his personifications, both musically and in his critical writings, of the characters Florestan and Eusebius whom he sought to amalgamate in the figure of Master Raro.

The social imagination and its representations in the paintings of students of the Department of Art Education

The aim of this research is to identify how to employ the social imagination and its representations in the paintings of the students of the Department of Art Education. Students of the Department of Art Education in the light of this tool, and the researcher reached a number of results, the most important of which are:1. The indicator of the social imagination in the excitement of the artist and the recipient, because the representations are embodied in forms within the painting and close to reality.2. An artistic sample of the representational imagination and the creative imagination was found to be more than the imaginary imagination.3. Individual symptoms related to the term.4. The representations of the social imagination were able to focus on social values and reject archaeological values, eliminating the positive energy of the artist and the audience.The research concluded with a review, recommendations and a list of references

Digging holes, excavating the present, mining the future: extractivism, time, and memory in Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s and Sammy Baloji’s works

ABSTRACT This article explores the links between creative imagination and extraction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This question has an undeniable memorial dimension, for extraction, as a crucial point of entry into Congolese historical consciousness, allows for a multi-perspectivist examination of the way in which the memory of the past has been archived, experienced, and (mis)interpreted. As a key term to understand Congo’s geopolitical position since colonial times, extraction offers a rich array of tropes and ideas to assess culture from the DRC and the Congolese diaspora. First, I reflect on the notions of extraction and extractivism; secondly, I analyse how they form the basis of Sammy Baloji's multi-media work in Mémoire (2006) and Mémoire/Kolwezi (2014); then, I turn to La Danse du vilain (2020) and Tram 83 (2014) by Fiston Mwanza Mujila, first to assess how extraction is employed in these novels, then to conduct a reflection on ‘necropolitics’, and reveal little-known aspects of diamond digging during the Mobutu era. I will also show that Baloji’s and Mujila’s creative trajectories have been enriched by dialogues with Filip De Boeck, the Belgian social anthropologist and specialist of the DRC.

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s Proposition of the New Critique of Reason. Imagination–Creativity–Freedom

Phenomenology is one of the main currents of modern philosophy. Philosophers most often understand it from the perspective of Edmund Husserl’s (1859–1938) phenomenology as a concept of cognition and a method of viewing and describing what is directly given, i.e. a phenomenon. In addition, phenomenology is the fundamental science – prima philosophia that determines what and how is directly given. Roman Ingarden (1893–1970), a student of E. Husserl, was the first thinker in Poland who practiced philosophy in a phenomenological way. R. Ingarden contributed to the dissemination of Husserl’s phenomenology in Poland and became an outstanding phenomenologist who developed an original phenomenological path proposing a creative reception of his teacher’s thoughts between World Wars II and I. Inagrden’s phenomenological path was different from Husserl’s. While Husserl developed a transcendental-idealistic form of phenomenology, Ingarden did not wholly abandon the transcendental path but went toward realism. The Polish phenomenologist did not want to question his master’s concept of the transcendental Self but only wanted to find a place for this Self in the real world. Polish thinkers who further deepened the creative reception of Husserl’s phenomenology have always gathered around Ingarden. One such person was Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (1923–2014). Their professor-student meeting occurred at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow just after the end of World War II. Husserl’s phenomenology inspired A.-T. Tymieniecka, but this was phenomenology understood by Ingarden, taking into account the realism of the world and the entire sphere of empiricism. We can assume that the scholar’s meeting with Ingarden allowed Tymieniecka to develop her phenomenological concept, which she called the concept of the phenomenology of life and the human creative condition. It is a phenomenology that rejects idealism and chooses the realism of the world and life in the cosmic dimension. The human being here is a living entity whose life is anchored in nature but ultimately evolves and develops in culture through scientific and technological activities. In this cosmological and dynamically changing perspective, the source experience of the subject – a living being – becomes the experience of being alive and living in the unity-of-erything-there-is-alive. Therefore, Tymieniecka rejected the primordial nature of the cognitive-constitutive act of the pure consciousness, which we deal with in classical phenomenology, favouring a creative act founded in man’s creative imagination and only secondarily reflected in the cognitive act. The Polish philosopher believed that only in such a case is there a possibility of freedom in the human world of life and, thus – authentic self-realisation and self-interpretation of man in existence.

Receptivity is not passivity: A comparison between psychoanalysis and phenomenology concerning experience, judgement and the analytic attitude

ABSTRACT Starting from Edmund Husserl’s last book Experience and Judgement, this paper explores the notions of “passivity” and “receptivity” in phenomenology and psychoanalysis. Both sciences agree that receptivity differs from passivity, but they have developed different conceptualizations about the very nature of the rudimentary “ego-activity” which is the source of receptivity. In phenomenological terms, “pre-predicative” experience roots in a primary presence and openness of the ego towards the world, whilst psychoanalysis has emphasized the role of projective and introjective processes which are close to bodily experiences and unconscious phantasy. The second part of the paper draws some conclusions concerning the analytic situation, in particular the shift among receptivity, empathy, curiosity and creative imagination as central features of the analytic attitude from a mainly Kleinian point of view. The paper argues that receptivity is a field where phenomenological and psychoanalytic approaches can mutually enrich and learn from each other.