Papers by Michael Hanchett Hanson
Routledge eBooks, May 19, 2021
Routledge eBooks, May 19, 2021
Springer eBooks, 2021
Howard Gruber was an activist, developmental psychologist, and educator. His life left a rich leg... more Howard Gruber was an activist, developmental psychologist, and educator. His life left a rich legacy, especially his view of creativity, a systems perspective on the individual as a force of change. Gruber was inspired by two conflicting views of social change. The first: historical materialism with its analysis of complex and powerful social, economic, and historical forces. The second: individual agency as necessary for human morality. His work with Piaget and his own extensive research on Charles Darwin were part of a quest to understand how individuals can have social impact, given the constraints of social forces and historical context. The purpose of this paper is to consider the educational implications of Gruber’s understanding of creative agency. The first part of the paper analyzes the development of Gruber’s own point of view through scholarship and activism. The second part analyzes Gruber’s evolving systems approach to the creative development of the individual within socio-historical contexts, including current elaborations of Gruber’s work—distributed and participatory views of creativity. The third discusses implications of these views for education. Lifespan developmental, holistic, and distributed views of creativity differ markedly from older ideation-focused approaches in how they support the education of students as active participants in their worlds.
Routledge eBooks, May 19, 2021
Routledge eBooks, May 19, 2021
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, 2020
Routledge eBooks, May 19, 2021
Possibility Studies & Society
What can science and science fiction tell us about the intertwining of the actual and the possibl... more What can science and science fiction tell us about the intertwining of the actual and the possible, the relations of imagination and reality? What are some of the ways those relationships can work? Should we be foregrounding possibilities that come primarily from our imaginations or the realities that push our imaginations? Contrary to common assumptions, this essay argues that imagination itself tends to be quite limited, but in some situations can become dangerously ungrounded. In contrast, the challenges of reality are more likely to push us to imagine previously inconceivable and transformative possibilities.
Creativity is a phenomenon that emerges in the human-sociocultural and machine-artificial layers.... more Creativity is a phenomenon that emerges in the human-sociocultural and machine-artificial layers. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the field of creativity faces new opportunities and challenges. This manifesto explores several scenarios of human-machine collaboration on creative tasks and proposes "fundamental laws of generative AI" to reinforce the responsible and ethical use of AI in the creativity field. Four scenarios are proposed and discussed: "Co-Cre-AI-tion", "Organic", "Plagiarism 3.0", and “Shut down”, each illustrating different possible futures based on the collaboration between humans and machines. In addition, we have incorporated an AI-generated manifesto that also highlights important themes, ranging from accessibility and ethics to cultural sensitivity. The fundamental laws proposed aim to prevent AIs from generating harmful content and competing directly with humans. Creating labels and laws are also highlight...
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, Dec 15, 2022
Studies of creativity have not traditionally focused on power dynamics, but that is changing. Dis... more Studies of creativity have not traditionally focused on power dynamics, but that is changing. Distributed and participatory approaches to creativity situate individual efforts as part of larger feedback systems from which new ideas emerge, are evaluated and are implemented. These systems include many people and material actors over time, and power is always at play. This article analyzes creativity in service to, in resistance to, and emerging from the colonial encounter, focusing on the role of the piano as a material actor in creative processes. The particular, slightly "adjusted" temperament of piano tuning first suppressed the inheritance of diverse tonal systems in Europe through industrial standardization and then was imposed on the musical practices of southern African communities in the colonial era. The natural tuning systems of the colonized people's own music was, thereby, considered to be "out of tune," providing reason both to devalue and to suppress the non-Western music. At the same time, an English working-class alternative to the tempered tuning system of the piano arose in the tonic sol-fa choral tradition, which was also exported in the 19th century through European migrations to the colonies. And, in spite of the colonial efforts, traditional southern African tonal systems were preserved. More recently, the traditional music and the sol-fa system have contributed to new, complex musical forms, synthesizing those elements with the tempered tuning system of the piano. This is, then, a complex story of shifting power around the evaluation of what is, and is not, "in tune."
Creativity Theory and Action in Education, 2019
A growing number of scholars have come to see creativity, not as a trait or force or process, but... more A growing number of scholars have come to see creativity, not as a trait or force or process, but as ideology – a set of seldom questioned values and assumptions about individuals and change that characterizes our time while unifying and reinforcing other ideological concepts, such as individualism and neophilia. What does this ideology look like in education? Can educators manage its impact, and even influence its meaning? In other words, inevitably working from within our ideology of creativity, what moves are available once we are aware of the stakes?
UNIPLURIVERSIDAD, 2019
Este manifiesto, discutido por 20 académicos y académicas que representan diversas líneas de inve... more Este manifiesto, discutido por 20 académicos y académicas que representan diversas líneas de investigación sobre la creatividad, marca un cambio conceptual dentro de los estudios de este campo. Los enfoques socioculturales han hecho contribuciones sustanciales al concepto de creatividad en las últimas décadas y hoy pueden proporcionar un conjunto de propuestas para guiar nuestra comprensión de la investigación anterior y generar nuevas direcciones en investigación y práctica. Estas proposiciones son urgentemente necesarias en respuesta a la transición de una Sociedad de la Información a una Sociedad Post-Información. A través de las proposiciones descritas aquí, nuestro objetivo es construir un terreno común e invitar a la comunidad de investigadores y profesionales de la creatividad a reflexionar, estudiar y cultivar la creatividad como un fenómeno sociocultural.
Worldmaking: Psychology and the Ideology of Creativity, 2015
Humanity faces unprecedented social, economic, political and ecological challenges. Old ways have... more Humanity faces unprecedented social, economic, political and ecological challenges. Old ways have proven inadequate. Our problems call for new solutions. Today’s Edisons, Ghandis, Curies and Picassos will be essential to making a sustainable future of prosperity and peace. Just as the world desperately needs creativity, our economy demands it. To participate and succeed in shaping the future everyone must be free to achieve his or her creative potential. Doing so will be not only good for the world but will also bring happiness and a sense of fulfillment as people exercise this most innately human aspect of their being.
Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 2015
Anna Craft, a leading researcher on creativity and education, described a condition that many of ... more Anna Craft, a leading researcher on creativity and education, described a condition that many of us have watched accelerate: "Creativity is an important element of the zeitgeist in the early twenty-first century, worldwide" (2005, p. ix), encompassing discourses on genius and individualism, democracy and politics, the social good, technological advances and educational practice, among others (Banaji, Burn, & Buckingham, 2006 as cited in Craft, 2010). It is important to note just how distinctive our times are in this regard. The ancient world did not subscribe to a psychological view of creativity, and during the Middle Ages in Europe in most places to assert that someone was creative would have been blasphemous (Weiner, 2000). God created. People only made things. In other words, we do not need a psychological concept of creativity to write great literature, develop philosophies, lay the foundations of democracy or build beautiful temples and cathedrals. In addition, the idea of "creating" or being "creative" retained implications of the dangers as well as the promises that come with change until the late nineteenth century. Then a wholly positive view of creativity largely eclipsed its negative connotations as dangerous, hubristic and potentially destructive (Mason, 2003). Since creativity came to be viewed as almost wholly positive, its importance has steadily grown. In particular, an ever-broader range of creativity theories in psychology and sociology have contributed to the creativity zeitgeist. There is a consensus definition of creativity in social science: producing something novel and of value in a context. As it turns out, though, that definition is just a starting point for a wide range of controversies. Early psychological views of creativity included sublimated infantile desires (Freud's views of the sources of creative ideas and motivations), sudden restructuring of perception (Gestalt views of insight) and the traits of divergent thinking (ideational flexibility, fluency and originality). Then the humanistic psychologists argued that creativity was the expression of a universal self-actualizing drive and its development was necessary to be a "fully functioning person" (Rogers, 1969, p. 278). Since the cognitive revolution in the mid-twentieth century, psychologists have developed a range of cognitive views from creativity as systemic evolution of thought (
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Papers by Michael Hanchett Hanson