The New Spirit of Creativity: Work, Compromise, and the Art and Design University - Hardcover

Liinamaa, Saara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 148750280X ISBN 13: 9781487502805

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2022

Synopsis

The New Spirit of Creativity examines creativity as an embedded institutional value and priority within public art institutions and higher education. The book unpacks the everyday work, organization, and administration of artistic creativity and its clashes with a "new spirit" of creativity that has widely taken hold. Based on fieldwork conducted at three art and design universities in Canada, Saara Liinamaa tackles the fraught landscape of contemporary higher education, the uncertainties of cultural work, and ongoing concerns around austerity in Canada. This book traces how creativity is not simply practiced within the art school, but also inequitably recognized and rewarded. Liinamaa identifies the many compromises required between artistic creativity and the new spirit, while demonstrating how not all compromises are created equally; compromise can support or erode creative diversity. Drawing on a range of original sources – including interviews, participant observation, policy and planning, and media – this work makes a compelling case as to why art and design schools are worthy of sustained attention. By connecting shared interests across sociology, education, cultural studies, art history, and cultural theory, The New Spirit of Creativity makes a novel and agenda-setting contribution to our understanding of artistic creativity, compromise, and cultural work.

About this title

About the Author

Saara Liinamaa is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 148750280X
• ISBN 13: 9781487502805
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320