Creative Theories of (Just About) Everything: A Journey Into Origins and Imaginations

A plea for a broad education in creativity across disciplines, from acclaimed Dutch theorist Jeroen Lutters, author of In the Shadow of the Art Work. Creativity has been hailed as the driving force and most important skill of the 21st century―a power to be taught, understood and deployed on all levels of society. Debate concerning the cognitive origins and potential of creativity is mostly confined to the realms of the natural and social sciences, with insights ranging from neurology to theoretical physics to psychology and educational sciences. It seems that true understanding of creativity is barely to be found within the humanities.

Here, using insights from these fields, and also delving into the ideas of Parmenides, Spinoza, Goethe, Emerson, Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Barthes, Deleuze, Baudrillard, Kripke, Bollas, Spivak, Bal and many others, Dutch theorist Jeroen Lutters―author of In the Shadow of the Art Work and The Trade of the Teacher― argues that creativity should be explicitly enforced in education and society, to open up new perspectives.