The Sociology of Invention

The Sociology of Invention PDF

Author: S. Colum Gilfillan

Publisher: Mit Press

Published: 1970-01

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 9780262570206

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The social factors that spur inventiveness and the social effects of inventions were treated at book length for the first time in this work, originally published in 1935. The author develops his presentation on the basis of 38 explicitly stated propositions. The author writes, "That inventionis an important subject for modern mankind to understand and perhaps later improve, all will agree. That invention is partly caused, hampered, promoted, steered by socialfactors and institutions (such as wealth, or the patent system) and not simply by developments in the physical sciences and industrial practice, will also be allowed. (How great is the social causation we shall discuss.) Likewise that inventions have wide social, and not simply industrial effects,has been common knowledge for nigh a century. There would seem then every call for a treatise on the Sociology of Invention. Yet not one book with this definitive field has been published in any language.... "Our problem is to combine those two worlds of thot, which have so rarely been conjoined—social science and engineering—in order to produce a rather new and fertile hybrid, a Sociology of Invention. It is a difficult problem, this getting people to study and think in an unfamiliar world; and we have tried to solve it for some readers, and dodge it for most...."

The Invention of Culture

The Invention of Culture PDF

Author: Roy Wagner

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-11-21

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 022642331X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

“This new edition of one of the masterworks of twentieth-century anthropology is more than welcome…enduringly significant insights.”—Marilyn Strathern, emerita, University of Cambridge In the field of anthropology, few books manage to maintain both historical value and contemporary relevance. Roy Wagner's The Invention of Culture, originally published in 1975, is one that does. Wagner breaks new ground by arguing that culture arises from the dialectic between the individual and the social world. Rooting his analysis in the relationships between invention and convention, innovation and control, and meaning and context, he builds a theory that insists on the importance of creativity, placing people-as-inventors at the heart of the process that creates culture. In an elegant twist, he also shows that this very process ultimately produces the discipline of anthropology itself. Tim Ingold’s foreword to the new edition captures the exhilaration of Wagner’s book while showing how the reader can journey through it and arrive safely—though transformed—on the other side.

The Invention of Creativity

The Invention of Creativity PDF

Author: Andreas Reckwitz

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-05-30

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 0745697070

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Contemporary society has seen an unprecedented rise in both the demand and the desire to be creative, to bring something new into the world. Once the reserve of artistic subcultures, creativity has now become a universal model for culture and an imperative in many parts of society. In this new book, cultural sociologist Andreas Reckwitz investigates how the ideal of creativity has grown into a major social force, from the art of the avant-garde and postmodernism to the ‘creative industries’ and the innovation economy, the psychology of creativity and self-growth, the media representation of creative stars, and the urban design of ‘creative cities’. Where creativity is often assumed to be a force for good, Reckwitz looks critically at how this imperative has developed from the 1970s to the present day. Though we may well perceive creativity as the realization of some natural and innate potential within us, it has rather to be understood within the structures of a very specific culture of the new in late modern society. The Invention of Creativity is a bold and refreshing counter to conventional wisdom that shows how our age is defined by radical and restrictive processes of social aestheticization. It will be of great interest to those working in a variety of disciplines, from cultural and social theory to art history and aesthetics.

Lanterna Rally - Theme by Grace Themes