Crisis And Creativity

"The Creativity Crisis excavates the root causes of America's innovation slow-down, showing why revolutionary insights are no longer chased by young talent. Economically and socially, caution has overtaken creation. This book is ultimately a roadmap for reinvigorating innovation within the system of science"--

“If you’ve been looking for something different to level up your health, fitness, and personal growth, this is it.”—Melissa Urban, Whole30 CEO and New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Boundaries “Michael Easter’s genius is that he puts data around the edges of what we intuitively believe. His work has inspired many to change their lives for the better.”—Dr. Peter Attia, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Outlive Discover the evolutionary mind and body benefits of living at the edges of your comfort zone and reconnecting with the wild—from the author of Scarcity Brain, coming in September! In many ways, we’re more comfortable than ever before. But could our sheltered, temperature-controlled, overfed, underchallenged lives actually be the leading cause of many our most urgent physical and mental health issues? In this gripping investigation, award-winning journalist Michael Easter seeks out off-the-grid visionaries, disruptive genius researchers, and mind-body conditioning trailblazers who are unlocking the life-enhancing secrets of a counterintuitive solution: discomfort. Easter’s journey to understand our evolutionary need to be challenged takes him to meet the NBA’s top exercise scientist, who uses an ancient Japanese practice to build championship athletes; to the mystical country of Bhutan, where an Oxford economist and Buddhist leader are showing the world what death can teach us about happiness; to the outdoor lab of a young neuroscientist who’s found that nature tests our physical and mental endurance in ways that expand creativity while taming burnout and anxiety; to the remote Alaskan backcountry on a demanding thirty-three-day hunting expedition to experience the rewilding secrets of one of the last rugged places on Earth; and more. Along the way, Easter uncovers a blueprint for leveraging the power of discomfort that will dramatically improve our health and happiness, and perhaps even help us understand what it means to be human. The Comfort Crisis is a bold call to break out of your comfort zone and explore the wild within yourself.

Leading scholars reflect on the 1492 expulsions of the Jews from Spain.

The framework has to come from outside the contemporary educational literature, even though it arises in observational or phenomenological sympathy with the field of learning and teaching. The argument throughout is also challenging and defies some assumptions underpinning the enlightened contemporary canon of teaching and learning reform. In identifying the expectations that make for the greatest cognitive engagement, the content is counterintuitive. The text investigates the phenomenology of expectations in any learning circumstance. The dynamic is not just about preclass activities - that is, setting up an enriched encounter with syllabus on campus - but the whole fabric of learning, either in private or as a member of a learning group. Every part of it is about an expectation, about managing what the learner thinks he or she is going to learn. The book deals with the agency of the learner and what helps learning. .

Today, when it seems like everything has been privatized, when austerity is too often seen as an economic or political problem that can be solved through better policy, and when the idea of moral values has been commandeered by the right, how can we re-imagine the forces used as weapons against community, solidarity, ecology and life itself? In this stirring call to arms, Max Haiven argues that capitalism has colonized how we all imagine and express what is valuable. Looking at the decline of the public sphere, the corporatization of education, the privatization of creativity, and the power of finance capital in opposition to the power of the imagination and the growth of contemporary social movements, Haiven provides a powerful argument for creating an anti-capitalist commons. Capitalism is not in crisis, it is the crisis, and moving beyond it is the only key to survival. Crucial reading for all those questioning the imposition of austerity and hoping for a fairer future beyond it.

American creativity has steadily declined since 1990. That disturbing trend recently came to light through the work of leading educational psychologist KH Kim, a recognized expert in creativity assessment. In this insightful and inspiring book, Kim discovers the causes of the decrease in creativity and proposes methods of recapturing American creativity in education, in industry, and throughout every sector of society. Through the life stories of innovators, Kim debunks the assumption that creative people must be born with innate talents. She shows how parents, educational methods, and cultures shaped innovators' creative expression. As her research clearly indicates, cultural climates and attitudes (including over-reliance on standardized testing) often work against innovation unless creativity is deliberately grown and developed. Culminating over twenty years of extensive research, Kim has devised original models to identify creativity in people and organizations and help it to blossom. Gardening metaphors illustrate simple but powerful steps to transform creative potential into innovation. She emphasizes practical steps to cultivate creative climates (environment) in schools, in homes, and at work; nurture creative attitudes (personality) toward learning, work, and life; and apply creative thinking skills. Kim's models for creativity are complemented with evidence-based methods to learn and practice creative skills in everyday life.

A moving portrait of a father and daughter relationship and a case for late-stage creativity from Emily Urquhart, the bestselling author of Beyond the Pale: Folklore, Family, and the Mystery of Our Hidden Genes. “The fundamental misunderstanding of our time is that we belong to one age group or another. We all grow old. There is no us and them. There was only ever an us.” — from The Age of Creativity It has long been thought that artistic output declines in old age. When Emily Urquhart and her family celebrated the eightieth birthday of her father, the illustrious painter Tony Urquhart, she found it remarkable that, although his pace had slowed, he was continuing his daily art practice of drawing, painting, and constructing large-scale sculptures, and was even innovating his style. Was he defying the odds, or is it possible that some assumptions about the elderly are flat-out wrong? After all, many well-known visual artists completed their best work in the last decade of their lives, Turner, Monet, and Cézanne among them. With the eye of a memoirist and the curiosity of a journalist, Urquhart began an investigation into late-stage creativity, asking: Is it possible that our best work is ahead of us? Is there an expiry date on creativity? Do we ever really know when we’ve done anything for the last time? The Age of Creativity is a graceful, intimate blend of research on ageing and creativity, including on progressive senior-led organizations, such as a home for elderly theatre performers and a gallery in New York City that only represents artists over sixty, and her experiences living and travelling with her father. Emily Urquhart reveals how creative work, both amateur and professional, sustains people in the third act of their lives, and tells a new story about the possibilities of elder-hood.