[csaa-forum] Creativity, Communication, and Cultural value

[Danny Butt]

I just finished " Creativity, Communication, and Cultural value" by Keith
Negus and Michael Pickering (Sage 2004), and I wondered if anyone could
recommend any more useful general overview books on creative practice that
might be useful to late undergrads or early postgrads.

I was so disappointed in the book that I can't even bring myself to write a
review - half of it consists of warnings about the limitations of a
sociological approach to creativity, without taking any specific writers to
task; their epistemological references are almost universally white, male,
and canonical; a whole chapter on "experience" - in its usual cultural
studies guise of "that which eludes theorisation but I'll talk about it
anyway" - that completely misses a few decades of feminist work
foregrounding an experiential approach to cultural material; and they even
try and rehabilitate the idea of "genius" (once again, with the "don't throw
the baby out with the bathwater" response to feminist scholarship, rather
than theoretical engagement). And don't get me started on the editing!

OK, well I hadn't intended to be so critical - there are some good quotes
and references... it just seems dangerous to let stuff like this in the
hands of impressionable students :). Anyway I was just looking for general
discussions of creativity  that might be useful; preferably acknowledging
the very diverse, culturally located perspectives on creativity, and perhaps
covering both more sociological approaches as well as the philosophy of
aesthetics. [Maybe McRobbie's new book will be what I'm after?]

Danny

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