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Area of Concentration: Creativity

Learning Objectives

Students are able to

  • understand creativity: they learn about the organisational and contextual, individual and group-based factors that foster or inhibit creative possibilities and how these can be recognised and shaped – both with others and also within themselves;

  • analyse creativity: they learn about methodological and empirical approaches to studying creative processes by focusing on new, innovative and activist phenomena in the fields of architecture, performance art, museums, fashion, gaming, fiction, creative writing, film, and urban ecology;

  • lead for creativity: they master a set of fertile questions, organising principles and intervention practices that have shown to be useful for idea and opportunity generation as well as innovative problem-solving in institutional, organisational and entrepreneurial settings and constraints;

  • express creativity: they develop embodied and playful, visual and other aesthetic ways of (collective) presenting, communicating, improvising and performing.

Creativity has since long been seen as one of the finest capacities of human potential that is connected to scientific invention, technological innovation, and artistic creation. Increasingly, creativity has been inscribed as a core resource to reinvigorate local economies, world-renowned businesses, urban neighbourhoods, and government policies. Creativity is often a “password” that is added on when consultants, journalists, or policymakers point at the importance of the “creative economy,” the “creative city,” the “creative class,” and even at a whole new sector – “the creative industries.” As creativity is seen to become a commodity, critical voices have increasingly paid attention to the rise of the creative imperative “be creative” and have questioned its central position in contemporary society.

Taking notice of the ambivalences about what creativity can (not) do, courses in the area of concentration on creativity aim to analyse and reflect upon creative practices and creativity discourse that is part of our professional, organisational and personal lives. Understanding creativity will be conceptually driven and supported in recent research on creative and innovative processes in the creative industries, innovative contexts and elsewhere. Importantly, we also draw upon concrete experiences with creative processes and aesthetic work during simulations, ethnographic walking, gaming, and other forms of creativity.

Therefore, the area of concentration Creativity contains courses that enable students to recognize opportunities for creativity in their professional and private lives and apply their creative abilities individually and in teams. On the basis of current research, insights and practical experiences, the students discover how to be(come) creative and generate novel, useful and feasible ideas in diverse ways and in diverse settings. Students are invited to leave their comfort zone and engage in trying out, experimenting, and exercising. So be ready for creativity tools, storytelling, group games, bodily exercises, video-making, urban walking, and dance or acting; but also for conceptual exploration, critical dialogue, new vocabularies, and reflective writing.

Bachelor: Students are introduced to the major themes in the study and practice of creativity. They become familiar with every-day, radical and historic creativity in a variety of organisational and business settings, and cultural, urban and community contexts. Students are challenged to leave their usual habitus (and comfort zone) of learning and try out a rich array of expressive materials and modes, such as visualisation, film, opera, architecture, fashion, theatre, comics, literature, and so on. Creativity is explored in groups, entrepreneurial settings, innovation projects and community or social initiatives.

Master: Students can choose from a broad range of advanced themes and fields of creativity. The courses differ from undergraduate courses in two attributes: they contain a higher degree of research findings and theoretical background, and they require a higher ambition and complexity level in the assigned creative tasks. An important side goal of the courses in this area of concentration is to inspire and challenge   students by exposing them to radically different perspectives and approaches.

Key Topics:

  • Creativity in Society and Cultural Productions
  • Creativity, Leadership and Organisational Cultures
  • Creativity in Business and Social Contexts
  • Creativity in Practice
  • Creativity and Communication

Coordination

Chris Steyaert

Prof. PhD

Full Professor of Organizational Psychology

OPSY-HSG
5. Stock
Rosenbergstrasse 51
9000 St Gallen

Martin Eppler

Prof. Dr.

Full Professor of Media and Communication Management

MCM-HSG
Büro 48-125
Blumenbergplatz 9
9000 St. Gallen
north