Last updated: 12/13/99
Link back to course Welcome

We make and use new things all of the time:

Stories
Music
Paintings and photographs
Living arrangements
A new wrinkle on an old recipe
A better way of doing business
A paper for a college course
A craft or carpentry project
A child’s costume or a new color combination for our own clothing
And so on

.. you get the idea. It happens all of the time.

All of this uses our creativity – our ability to make something that hasn’t been made before.

Much of what we call the twentieth century is due to major creative personalities – people like Freud, T.S. Elliott, Stravinsky, Picasso and Ghandi – who made dramatic changes in the way we look at the world and at each other.

• For example, Sigmund Freud defined our present concepts of the ego and the unconscious. Even though many of his ideas are criticized today, he still developed much of the language and many of the concepts that we use to criticize his ideas!
• Similarly, Pablo Picasso painted some of the first abstract pictures; paintings that went beyond the idea that artists are supposed to accurately represent the world we see, and instead led to the idea that art should represent our inner reactions to what we see, or even our inner feelings and emotions. As the talk show hosts and TV interviewers ask, "How do you feel about that?" No one creates art today, or looks at art today, without being influenced by Picasso. It doesn't matter whether or not you like Picasso's paintings. His ideas are part of you.

All of this is important, to be sure. One researcher calls it "Big C" creativity. But there is also "little c" creativity; creativity that may not change the whole way we see the world, but is still very important, especially when we develop new industries or new products or even improved methods of making the same products. And new songs, new styles, new clothing, new lifestyles – who can deny their importance?

Creativity: Building the New is a Wayne State University, Interdiscilinary Studies Program, taught over the Internet, with a three-credit version and a four-credit version. The course will explore the concept of creativity using several techniques:

1. Exploring the creative contributions of seven major figures of the Twentieth Century; the scientist Albert Einstein, the psychologist Sigmund Freud, the artist Pablo Picasso, the poet T.S. Elliott, the modern choreographer Martha Graham, the social innovator Mahatma Ghandi, and the composer Igor Stravinsky. The focus is on the Twentieth Century because the creations are more familiar, we are more conscious of them as new, and because there are more surviving materials that document how these people conceived of their own work. The inner lives of these people are interesting in themselves, but they will also highlight the important aspects of creativity. For example, does the creative artist correspond to the familiar idea of the lone genius going hungry is a freezing attic apartment? Nothing could be further from the truth!
   
2. Examining how creativity happens in the today’s business world. Increasingly, as the global marketplace causes intense competition, businesses are finding that the critical resource for innovation is creative ideas from their employees. Managers are taking workshops on managing creativity. Businesses are concerned with where the next good idea is going to come from. Starting with that old favorite, the suggestion box, which was itself a creative idea, and moving on through incentive programs, creative environments, job rotations and improving communications to promote the sharing of ideas, and further to creativity seminars and creativity consultants, we will explore the trends and the fads, and see which approaches actually lead to new ideas. One surprising result; monetary rewards seldom work. People are creative because they like to see their ideas in action: "That’s my company because that’s my idea."
   
3. Creativity in our personal lives. What are the individual benefits of creativity? Can each of us be creative? Are there different types of creativity? What is important to you about creativity? Can you create more opportunities for creativity in your own life? The point here is – what is important to you?
   
4. Tracing the history of the modern study of creativity from its roots in mentally equipping World War II bomber crews to improvise escapes when captured, to recent results which overthrow many popular beliefs about creativity.
   
5. For the four-credit version, following a second major research project on how supervisors, parents and others can foster creativity in those around them, and what techniques they should avoid.

Creativity: Building the New is on-line. You will need an Internet connection to take this course. You can use the free Internet connection that Wayne State University offers all registered students, but any other Internet connection will also do, such as

• America On Line
• Prodigy
• Mindspring
• Internet connection through other school or college
• Computer lab at Wayne State University or other school or college, connected to the Internet
• Computer at work. You should make sure that your employer approves of this usage. Note that if your employer has an intranet with a firewall, you may need a special account from your employer, to get access to the public Internet.

We will use the following Internet technologies in this course:

• Email for turning in assignments and getting them back
• World Wide Web for postings such as syllabus, lectures and assignments
• Web-based computer conferencing for class discussions

Creativity: Building the New will have one initial class meeting to review the course content and procedures, and to go over the course web site, computer conferencing system, and emailing with attachments. You can opt out of this initial class meeting if you demonstrate that you can:

• Send and receive Internet email, including attachments.
• Access the course web site.
• Use the course computer conferencing system via the World Wide Web to read and post messages.

If you opt out of the initial class meeting, there will also be an additional class assignment, to make up the class time and assure that you get started. Follow this link for the details on opting out of the first (and only) scheduled class meeting. For further information, or for questions or comments, contact the Instructor: contact information is listed at the top of each page on the course web site (including the top of this page).

In past offerings of this course, enough participants (about fifty percent or so) have wanted to get together to discuss the course, and so there have been voluntary IRL (In Real Life) meetings for informal discussion. The times were chosen by those who wanted to get together. Notes were posted afterwards, for the benefit of those who were not at these meetings. That will also be an option for Winter 2000.