Culture and Creativity
Claudio E Benzecry author Vanina Leschziner author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Polity Press
Publishing:23rd Oct '26
£15.99
This title is due to be published on 23rd October, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Where does creativity come from? How do new ideas emerge, take shape, become materialized into products, and gain acceptance? Culture and Creativity offers a compelling account of creativity as a fundamentally social process.
Moving beyond individualistic and psychological explanations, this book explores how creativity is shaped by cultural norms, knowledge exchange, material conditions, cognitive process, social networks, and organizational structures. Drawing on a wide range of interdisciplinary research, it examines the collective dynamics behind innovation in areas as diverse as art, cuisine, music, science, and technology. Structured around four key themes – culture, materiality, cognition, and social organization – each chapter introduces foundational theories, engages contemporary debates, and explores case studies of how creativity happens in practice.
Written in an accessible yet rigorous style, Culture and Creativity is an essential resource for students and scholars in the social sciences and humanities, as well as anyone interested in understanding creativity. It sets a new agenda for viewing creativity not as a mysterious force but as a patterned, explainable, and deeply embedded feature of social life.
"Creativity has become a mantra of our age, but we still cling to myths of solitary genius. Culture and Creativity reveals how innovation actually emerges from cultures, institutions, careers, and collaborations that make new work possible, visible, and valuable—and why that matters for how we study and organize creative work today."
Richard Florida, University of Toronto
"Culture and Creativity compellingly brings into conversation a variety of different perspectives, from cognitive to environmental, in the ever-expanding field of creativity studies. Comprehensive and engagingly-written, this is a significant contribution to scholarship and a clear cross-disciplinary introduction for scholars of creativity from any field in the social sciences or humanities."
Kathy Giuffre, Colorado College
"Creativity is in high demand. Today, not only artists but almost everyone is expected to be creative. But what is creativity, and how is it accomplished? To address these questions, Benzecry and Leschziner have written a highly relevant book that draws on an impressive range of sources. It is an excellent starting point for understanding the role and production of creativity in contemporary society."
Patrik Aspers, Chair of Sociology, University of St. Gallen
"In Culture and Creativity, Benzecry and Leschziner ask how and why humans do things that others value and strive to emulate. They answer that mundane processes of social and economic life, not moments of glorious insight, is the stuff of cultural and material advance. This book is intellectually ambitious and demystifying important in a worldly way."
Harvey Molotch, author of Where Stuff Comes From
ISBN: 9781509546879
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
164 pages