B(l)ending time, (de)compressing identity: Creative thought and meaning construction in Copy Shop (2001)

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-107
Author(s):  
Petros Vouvaris ◽  
Dimitris Tasoudis
Keyword(s):  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
Short Film ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Creative Thought ◽  
Dialectical Relationship ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
The One

According to the critics of Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT), most of its creativity-related applications tend to conflate the role of producer and consumer, implicitly proposing the deduction of the former’s creative perspective from the finished product through a process of reverse-engineering the latter’s meaning-making strategies. However, given the non-linearity and multi-directionality of the actual creative praxis, the relation between these two roles as heuristic categories need not be considered so much oppositional, as dialectical. Investigating the cognitive mechanisms involved in the ongoing creative process within the context of this dialectical relationship can help us gain some insight into both perspectives, while eschewing the elusiveness of their precise demarcation. The case study presented in this article constitutes such an attempt. By adopting a CBT approach, it offers an interpretation of the creative thinking behind the 2001 short film Copy Shop, informed by the documented insights of its creators. The article proposes a shift in primary focus from the mechanics of conceptual blending to its consequences in reference to the compression and decompression of vital relations and, more particularly, Time and Identity. On the one hand, it aims at examining how the particular ways of populating and interrelating the mental spaces that input to the blend at selected time points in the film occasion Time compressions and shape temporal experience. On the other hand, it concentrates on demonstrating how Copy Shop narrativizes the same processes of (de)compressing Identity that inform the conceptual blends it proposes.

Developing Creative Thinking in Arithmetic

1957 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-12
Author(s):  
Calvin H. Reed
Keyword(s):  
Creative Thinking ◽  
The Other ◽  
Creative Thought ◽  
Paradoxical Situation ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

IN THIS DECADE OF 1950–60, we find ourselves faced with a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, we pay high tribute to the creative minds that have helped to make America great—politically, economically, scientifically, and socially. We bestow our admiration on our Einsteins, Carvers, Edisons, Salks, Jeffersons, and others, because they contributed much to make our lives richer and happier. These men were creative thinkers. On the other hand, as we review the contemporary scene, we can identify people, forces and institutions that are suppressing creative thought and opinions of individuals.

Costumes and Choreography from Bodenwieser's Trunk: The Coat as Affective Memory

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-110
Author(s):  
Rachel Fensham
Keyword(s):  
Modern Dance ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Creative Thought ◽  
Cain And Abel ◽  
Embodied Research ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Material Evidence ◽  
Selection Of

The Viennese modern choreographer Gertrud Bodenwieser's black coat leads to an analysis of her choreography in four main phases – the early European career; the rise of Nazism; war's brutality; and postwar attempts at reconciliation. Utilising archival and embodied research, the article focuses on a selection of Bodenwieser costumes that survived her journey from Vienna, or were remade in Australia, and their role in the dramaturgy of works such as Swinging Bells (1926), The Masks of Lucifer (1936, 1944), Cain and Abel (1940) and The One and the Many (1946). In addition to dance history, costume studies provides a distinctive way to engage with the question of what remains of performance, and what survives of the historical conditions and experience of modern dance-drama. Throughout, Hannah Arendt's book The Human Condition (1958) provides a critical guide to the acts of reconstruction undertaken by Bodenwieser as an émigré choreographer in the practice of her craft, and its ‘materializing reification’ of creative thought. As a study in affective memory, information regarding Bodenwieser's personal life becomes interwoven with the author's response to the material evidence of costumes, oral histories and documents located in various Australian archives. By resurrecting the ‘dead letters’ of this choreography, the article therefore considers how dance costumes offer the trace of an artistic resistance to totalitarianism.

Conceptualizing Culture: Possibilities for Political Science

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 713-728 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Wedeen
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
Ethnic Identity Formation ◽  
Work Habits ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
Theoretical Category ◽  
Causal Variable ◽  
Oriented Approach

This essay makes a case for an anthropological conceptualization of culture as “semiotic practices” and demonstrates how it adds value to political analyses. “Semiotic practices” refers to the processes of meaning-making in which agents' practices (e.g., their work habits, self-policing strategies, and leisure patterns) interact with their language and other symbolic systems. This version of culture can be employed on two levels. First, it refers to what symbols do—how symbols are inscribed in practices that operate to produce observable political effects. Second, “culture” is an abstract theoretical category, a lens that focuses on meaning, rather than on, say, prices or votes. By thinking of meaning construction in terms that emphasize intelligibility, as opposed to deep-seated psychological orientations, a practice-oriented approach avoids unacknowledged ambiguities that have bedeviled scholarly thinking and generated incommensurable understandings of what culture is. Through a brief exploration of two concerns central to political science—compliance and ethnic identity-formation—this paper ends by showing how culture as semiotic practices can be applied as a causal variable.

scholarly journals History teaching as a designed meaning-making process: Teacher facilitation of student–subject relationships

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Eskelund Knudsen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
The Other ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
History Teaching ◽  
Teaching Situation ◽  
Communicative Process ◽  
The One ◽  
Student Subject

This article is an empirical analysis of history teaching as a communicative process. Dialogic history teaching develops as a designed meaning-making process that depends on thorough pedagogical strategies and decisions, and requires cohesion in teacher expectations, introductions and interventions. A micro-dialogic study is presented in this article to document a paradoxical teaching situation where history as subject-related content all but disappeared from a group of students' meaning-making processes because they were preoccupied with figuring out their teacher's intentions. History teaching thus turned into 'just teaching' without the teacher or the students being aware of it. A strong emphasis on history teaching as a communicative process and dialogue as a key pedagogical tool have potential with regard to pedagogical decision-making and strategies on the one hand, and for relationships between students and history as subject-related content on the other. The analysis presented in this article contributes to a growing field of studies on dialogic history teaching, of which the focus on students as an important part of classroom dialogues is central.

scholarly journals A marriage of convenience or an amicable divorce: Metaphorical blends in the debates on Brexit

ExELL ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Sanja Berberović ◽  
Mersina Mujagić
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Discourse Coherence ◽  
The Way

Abstract The paper investigates the interaction of conceptual blending and conceptual metaphor in producing figurative creativity in discourse. The phenomenon of figurative creativity is defined by Kövecses (2005) as creativity arising through the cognitive mechanisms of metonymy, metaphor, and blending. Specifically, the paper examines the use of creative figurative language in the British public discourse on the topic on Brexit. The aim of this paper is to show that conventional metaphors can be creatively stretched through conceptual blending, producing instances of creative figurative language. Specifically, applying blending theory, we will analyse innovative conceptual blends, motivated by the conventional marriage/divorce metaphor. In addition, the paper also examines the way in which creative figurative language produced in metaphorical blends provides discourse coherence at intertextual and intratextual levels.

scholarly journals Conceptual integration theory and British humour: an analysis of the sitcom Miranda

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Jabłońska-Hood
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
Integration Theory ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Mental Space ◽  
Mental Spaces ◽  
Emergent Structure ◽  
Conceptual Integration Theory ◽  
Different Levels

Conceptual integration theory (henceforth CIT), aka conceptual blending, was devised by Fauconnier and Turner (2002) as a model for meaning construction and interpretation. It is based on the notion of a mental space, which originated in Fauconnier's early research (1998). Mental spaces are structures that constitute information pertaining to a particular concept (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 40). Interestingly, mental spaces can be linked together and blended so as to produce a novel quality not previously present. In this manner, conceptual integration serves the purpose of a theoretical model which throws light on creativity in language use. In my paper, I will apply CIT to British humour in order to use its multiway blending together with its dynamic, online running of the blended contents for the purpose of comedy elucidation. It is crucial to observe that British humour is a complex phenomenon which pertains to many different levels of interpretation, i.e. a linguistic, cultural or a discourse one. CIT possesses a well suited cognitive apparatus which can encompass the complexity of British humour with all its layers. The primary goal of the article is to analyse a selected scene from a sitcom entitled Miranda in order to show the validity of the theory in respect of humour studies. In particular, I will undertake to demonstrate that CIT, with a special emphasis on its principles such as compression and the emergent structure of the blend can deal with many processes that accumulate within British humour and result in laughter. Simultaneously, I will try to demonstrate that frame-shifting, as proposed by Coulson (2015: pp. 167-190), can be of help to CIT in humour explanation.

scholarly journals Tilbake til det neumiske: Fortolkning og dialektikk hos Adorno og Harnoncourt

2020 ◽  
pp. 215-242
Author(s):  
Emil Bernhardt
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Written Text ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Musical Interpretation ◽  
Dialectical Relationship ◽  
The One ◽  
Shed Light

My aim in this article is to develop a possible understanding of Adorno’s thoughts on musical interpretation as they appear in a collection of fragments posthumously published in 2001 under the title of Zu einer Theorie der musikalischen Reproduktion [Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction]. I do this by using an actual sounding example, with emphasis on the dialectical relationship between the written text and the sounding realization. On the one hand, I use a passage by Beethoven (Symphony No. 1, First Movement) that is characterized by some philological uncertainties regarding articulation, explained in slightly different ways in three so-called Urtext-editions of the score. On the other hand, I use a recorded interpretation of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Austrian Nikolaus Harnoncourt. I will argue that, in this performance, Harnoncourt’s articulation of the actual passage provides a useful illustration of the tension between text and sound. Moreover, as the interpretation is also musically intriguing, it seems to function as a thought-provoking example of the dialectical relationship which for Adorno characterizes a successful musical interpretation. Thus, the article aims to shed light on both Adorno’s somewhat intricate speculations and Harnoncourt’s personal practice of interpretation.

scholarly journals STUDENTŲ KŪRYBIŠKUMO IR INTELEKTO GEBĖJIMŲ SĄSAJOS

Psichologija ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 60-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daiva Karkockienė ◽  
Giedrë Butkienė
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Divergent Thinking ◽  
Verbal Ability ◽  
Weak Links ◽  
Creativity Training ◽  
Intellectual Abilities ◽  
Creative Abilities ◽  
The One ◽  
Experimental Group

Tyrimo objektas – studentų kūrybiškumo kognityvinių ir intelekto gebėjimų struktūrinių ypatumų santykis. E. P. Torrance’o testu (TCT verbalinės dalies A forma) ir R. Amthauerio IST-70 B forma ištirta 160 Vilniaus pedagoginio universiteto studentų. Koreliacine analize nustatytas statistiškai reikšmingas sąryšis tarp mąstymo lankstumo bei originalumo ir aukščiausio lygmens kalbinių intelekto gebėjimų, matuojamų BE subtestu, taip pat tarp mąstymo sklandumo, lankstumo bei originalumo ir sakinio papildymo (SP) bei žodžių išrinkimo (ŽI) subtestų įvertinimų. Statistiškai reikšmingos priklausomybės tarp kūrybiškumo kognityvinių gebėjimų pokyčio mokantis pagal specialią kūrybiškumo ugdymo programą ir intelekto struktūros profilio nerasta, tačiau ryški originalumo padidėjimo sąsaja su kalbinių intelekto gebėjimų (BE), konstrukcinio mąstymo (KU) subtestų įvertinimais ir originalumo bei sklandumo pokyčio sąsaja su loginio-algebrinio mąstymo (SE) subtesto įvertinimais.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: kūrybiškumas, divergentinis mąstymas, intelektiniai gebėjimai. SOME RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STUDENTS’ CREATIVE AND INTELLECTUAL ABILITIESDaiva Karkockienė, Giedrė Butkienė SummaryThe aim of this study was to reveal some interactions between creative and intellectual abilities as well as interactions of creative abilities variation after training of creativity and intellectual abilities.Creativity in this study is understood in terms of cognitive abilities of creative thinking expressed by divergent thinking components as fluency, flexibility and originality (Guilford, 1950; Torrance, 1974; Sternberg and O’Hara, 1999). Divergent thinking is the one component of creative thought understood as the distinct capacity to generate multiple alternative solutions as opposed the one correct solution. Divergent thinking is assessed through open-ended tests such as consequences and alternative uses, where responses are scored for fluency (number of responses), flexibility (category shifts in responses) and originality (uniqueness of response).There were 160 students (mean age 23) from Vilnius Pedagogical University. E. P. Torrance test (verbal, form A, 1974) was used to identify cognitive abilities of creative thinking (fluency, flexibility and originality). R. Amthauer test (IST-70) was used to measure intellectual capabilities. The subjects were randomly assigned to two experimental (n = 80) and control groups (n = 80). The experimental group took part in creativity training program during four months (32 hours).The special program of creativity training was used once a week for four months (32 hours). The program was made-up for the developing cognitive abilities of creative thinking (fluency, flexibility and originality). Special methods (brain storming, ideas generation, drama, divergent tasks etc.) were used to develop students’ creative abilities. The experimental group took part in creativity training program.The study revealed the interactions between creative abilities evaluated by Torrance test (TTCT, verbal A form) and intellectual abilities evaluated by Amthauer IST. Weak interactions were revealed between flexibility and BE subtest of abstract verbal ability (r = 0,24, p < 0,01), as well as originality and BE subtest of abstract verbal ability (r = 0,22, p < 0,01). There are some weak links between all cognitive parameters of creativity (fluency, flexibility and originality) and the results of Sentence Supplement (SP) subtest (r = 0,17, p < 0,05) as well as between fluency, flexibility and ability to percept language meaning (ŽI) subtest (r = 0,18, p < 0,05; r = 0,16; p < 0,05). No such tendency was found between other creative and intellectual abilities.Though there were no significant interactions between increase of creative abilities and intellectual abilities, clear links were found between originality and abstract verbal ability (BE) and spatial imagination (KU) (r 0, BE = 0,41; r 0, KU = 0,38; r 0,05 = 0,53).Keywords: creativity, divergent thinking, intellectual abilities.

Unconditional and conditional as categories of the dialectic of law

2021 ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Grigory N. Utkin
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Dialectical Relationship ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
The One ◽  
Dialectical Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Meaning

The article reveals the conceptual, meaning-forming role of the categories of the unconditional and conditional in law. At the same time, their dialectical relationship with each other and with other categories is put in the center of attention. The dialectic of the unconditional and conditional is revealed by achieving the unity of the three stages of theoretical analysis, which allows us to present the unconditional and conditional, on the one hand, as the content of all concepts, through which the idea of law is generally expressed in various aspects and elements; on the other hand, the entire set of categories subject to dialectical analysis appears as elements of the content of the unconditional and conditional as semantic units that Express the universal characteristics of law in its features, isolation from other forms of social life.

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