The Promise and Premise of Creativity: Why Comparative Literature Matters - Softcover

Eugene Chen Eoyang

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1441181032 ISBN 13: 9781441181039

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012

Synopsis

The Promise and Premise of Creativity considers literature in the larger context of globalization and 'the clash of cultures.' Refuting the view that the study of literature is 'useless,' Eoyang argues that it expands three distinct intellectual skills: creative imagination, vicarious sympathy, and capacious intuition.

With the advent of the personal computer and the blurring of cultural and economic boundaries, it is the ability to imagine, to intuit, and to invent that will mark the educated student, and allow her to survive the rapid pace of change. As never before, the ability to empathize with other peoples, to understand cultures very different from one's own, is vital to success in a globalized world. In this, the very 'uselessness' of literature may inure the mind to think creatively.

Engaging with both the theory and practice of literature, its past and its potential future, Eoyang claims that our sense of the world at large, of the salient similarities and differences between cultures, would be critically diminished without comparative literature.

About this title

About the Author

Eugene Eoyang is Professor Emeritus of English, Humanities, Translation, and General Education at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China, and Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University, USA.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1441181032
• ISBN 13: 9781441181039
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208