NEH Enduring Questions Course on Creativity

FAIN: AQ-248196-16

University of Rochester (Rochester, NY 14627-0001)
Susan E. Uselmann (Project Director: September 2015 to November 2019)

The development and teaching of a new undergraduate course on historical, cultural, and scientific approaches to creativity.

The proposed course focuses on exploring the enduring question "What is Creativity?" Human creativity fuels artistic and social expression as well as cultural and educational exchange, and it is a focal point of entrepreneurial and scientific innovation. Yet although creativity is widely recognized as vital to the human experience, it has remained notoriously difficult to define. The proposed course traces the history of efforts to define the creative process from literary, artistic, scientific and cultural viewpoints, as well as in business and design thinking. As part of this process, students will also examine the relationship between Western and "non-Western" concepts of creativity. Through this multidisciplinary and inter-cultural lens, students will explore how creativity has been conceived in the past, why it has become such an important part of contemporary society, and how our conceptions of creativity may affect the future.