The Poetry and Music of Science

Author(s):  
Tom McLeish

‘I could not see any place in science for my creativity or imagination’, was the explanation, of a bright school leaver to the author, of why she had abandoned all study of science. Yet as any scientist knows, the imagination is essential to the immense task of re-creating a shared model of nature from the scale of the cosmos, through biological complexity, to the smallest subatomic structures. Encounters like that one inspired this book, which takes a journey through the creative process in the arts as well as sciences. Visiting great creative people of the past, it also draws on personal accounts of scientists, artists, mathematicians, writers, and musicians today to explore the commonalities and differences in creation. Tom McLeish finds that the ‘Two Cultures’ division between the arts and the sciences is not after all, the best classification of creative processes, for all creation calls on the power of the imagination within the constraints of form. Instead, the three modes of visual, textual, and abstract imagination have woven the stories of the arts and sciences together, but using different tools. As well as panoramic assessments of creativity, calling on ideas from the ancient world, medieval thought, and twentieth-century philosophy and theology, The Poetry and Music of Science illustrates its emerging story by specific close-up explorations of musical (Schumann), literary (James, Woolf, Goethe) mathematical (Wiles), and scientific (Humboldt, Einstein) creation. The book concludes by asking how creativity contributes to what it means to be human.

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 96-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Knox

This article explores personal, organisational and societal perspectives on creativity, arts, and adult education. Attention to creativity in the United States has increased during the past century. Fifty years ago, scholars and practitioners interested in the arts and sciences were focused on extraordinary creative achievements. Since then the scope of such interest has expanded from innovative and useful outcomes such as paintings and inventions, to include characteristics of very creative people, their ways of working, and various influences. The scope has also broadened from a few outstanding examples to increasingly include all people and their lifelong learning in a society in which change and learning have become widespread. This article demonstrates how creative adult education can help enhance the creativity of all people in all aspects of their life. I combine my parallel experience in art and adult education to explore the beneficiaries of art; characteristics of artists; venues where creative activity takes place; and how appreciation is shown for creative endeavours. I also use artistic metaphors and combine a review of trends regarding major writings about creativity, with personal reflections about future directions to strengthen attention to creativity in adult education.


Author(s):  
Anne Whitehead

This chapter asks how, in the context of the medical humanities, we might productively think across disciplinary domains and boundaries. It draws on Ian McEwan’s Saturday as a focus for positioning the question of interdisciplinarity within a specifically British context. The first section, ‘The two cultures’, surveys the ‘two cultures’ debate and its legacy and discusses the appearance of Matthew Arnold’s poem ‘Dover Beach’ at a critical point of the novel. In the second section, ‘A third culture?’, the focus turns to McEwan’s engagement with popular science discourses and argues that it underpins a discernible conservatism in his work. The final section, ‘An unbounded view’, reads Saturday against the grain to argue that, in McEwan’s treatment of dementia a more positive, open-ended model for thinking across the arts and sciences might be seen to emerge.


2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-160
Author(s):  
Oskar Gruenwald ◽  

This essay explores a new conceptual paradigm for bridging the gulf separating what C. P. Snow called The Two Cultures--science and the humanities. Central to this rainbow paradigm is a more unified, holistic, and integral understanding of human life in society. A fruitful science-theology dialogue presupposes a much broader context of a revitalized Third Culture which weaves together insights from all the arts and sciences, social sciences and humanities. The essay thus invokes the incarnational dimension of man as God's creation and truth as the Logos or ultimate Reality. The conclusion follows that a new lingua franca--a more felicitous conceptual understanding focusing on man as the missing link-requires integrative insights across all disciplines. Such an integral vision of what it means to be fully human reflects a sapiential, existential, and eschatological challenge of unity in diversity, that is, a truly human culture or a culture of cultures.


2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (8) ◽  
pp. 1795-1801 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Sydow

The papers accepted for publication in this themed issue reflect to a large extent the long-needed move toward recognizing the importance of a focus on tensions and contradictions as dualities. In this commentary, I will recap the tensions addressed not only in these papers but also in the commentary by Grabher and inquire into how they address them, for instance by unearthing the concepts these authors mobilize to theorize them. I will conclude that, from an organization theory perspective, economic geography seems to be on a good way to a more balanced and conflict-sensitive, even dialectical process understanding of creativity and organization that could well be pushed a little further in this direction.


2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Reznick

In June 2013, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) released The Heart of the Matter, a report on the continuing indispensable role of the humanities and social sciences in meeting major global challenges and urgent national goals. Commissioned by a bipartisan group of senators and representatives and involving more than fifty AAAS members from various sectors—including academia, business, government, the arts, and the media—the report called for renewed commitment to the humanities and social sciences. More specifically, it called for leadership collaborations across a wide array of sectors to meet the urgent goals of: educating Americans . . .


2021 ◽  
pp. 109-135
Author(s):  
Alexander Lee

The later Middle Ages as a cultural period has been shaped by the Burckhardtian tradition: Burckhardt drew a sharp distinction between the ‘medieval’ outlook he believed had prevailed north of the Alps and the ‘rebirth’ of classical antiquity he saw taking place in the Italian peninsula. Over the past 60 years, however, the validity of such a contrast has been called into question. As a consequence, it is now generally accepted that the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were characterized more by diversity than by division. This chapter examines how, in every field of cultural endeavour, from painting and sculpture to poetry and music, there emerged a series of quite different, often heterogeneous trends. Originating in different parts of Europe, these were transmitted across the continent, where they interacted with parallel developments elsewhere. The effect was less that of a concerto than of a rich and discordant symphony of competing voices.


2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carsten Baumgarth

Purpose This paper aims to present historical examples of collaborations between brand strategists and artists; provide an extensive, structured overview of existing published research on such collaborations and their effects; present seven papers comprising this special issue; and discuss ideas for further research into brand–art collaboration. Design/methodology/approach This is an editorial based mainly on an extensive and broad literature review. Findings First, this editorial underpins the relevance of brand–art collaboration in the past and present by reference to real examples. Second, it structures the diverse literature into four key aspects of the topic: inspiration, insights, identity and image. Third, it provides a glimpse of the seven papers selected for this special issue. Fourth and finally, it identifies a total of 16 avenues for further research, on four levels (artist, brand owner, consumer and cooperation process). Originality/value This editorial and the entire special issue together represent the first anthology on the topic of the interface between brand management and arts. The collection and classification of the existing literature, the formulation of ideas for future research and the content of the seven papers are collectively excellent starting springboards for new and fresh brand research projects.


2019 ◽  
pp. 135-142
Author(s):  
K. V. Ivanova ◽  
A. M. Lapina ◽  
V. V. Neshataev

The 2nd international scientific conference «Fundamental problems of vegetation classification» took place at the Nikitskiy Botanical Garden (Yalta, Republic of Crimea, Russia) on 15–20 September 2019. There were 56 participants from 33 cities and 43 research organizations in Russia. The conference was mostly focused on reviewing the success in classification of the vegetation done by Russian scientists in the past three years. The reports covered various topics such as classification, description of new syntaxonomical units, geobotanical mapping for different territories and types of vegetation, studies of space-time dynamics of plant communities. The final discussion on the last day covered problems yet to be solved: establishment of the Russian Prodromus and the National archive of vegetation, complications of higher education in the profile of geobotany, and the issue of the data leakage to foreign scientific journals. In conclusion, it was announced that the 3rd conference in Nikitskiy Botanical Garden will be held in 2022.


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