Creative Encounters, Appreciating Difference

Perspectives and Strategies

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Other Practices, Ethnic & Tribal, Reference, Comparative Religion, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Anthropology
Cover of the book Creative Encounters, Appreciating Difference by Sam Gill, Lexington Books
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Sam Gill ISBN: 9781498580885
Publisher: Lexington Books Publication: November 15, 2018
Imprint: Lexington Books Language: English
Author: Sam Gill
ISBN: 9781498580885
Publisher: Lexington Books
Publication: November 15, 2018
Imprint: Lexington Books
Language: English

Across the world from personal relationships to global politics, differences—cultural, religious, racial, gender, age, ability—are at the heart of the most disruptive and disturbing concerns. While it is laudable to nurture an environment promoting the tolerance of difference, Creative Encounters, Appreciating Difference argues for the higher goal of actually appreciating difference as essential to creativity and innovation, even if often experienced as stressful and complex. Even encounters that are apparently harmful and negatively valued (arguments, conflict, war, oppression) usually heighten the potential for creativity, innovation, movement, action, and identity.

Drawing on classic encounters that have played a significant role in the founding of the academic study of religion and the social sciences, this book explores in some depth the dynamics of encounter to reveal both its problematic and creative aspects and to develop perspectives and strategies to assure encounters both include the appreciation of difference and also are recognized as creative and innovative.

The two examples most extensively considered show that the academic study of the peoples indigenous to North America and to Australia involved creative constructions (concoctions) of primary examples in order to establish and give authority to academic theories and definitions. Rather than damning these examples as “bad scholarship,” this book considers them to be encounters engendering creative constructions that are distinctive to academia, yet their potential for harm must be understood.

Most important to the book is a persistent development of perspectives and strategies for understanding and approaching encounters in order to assure the appreciation of difference is accompanied by the potential for creativity and innovation. Specific perspectives and strategies are related to naming, moving, gesture, and play and, particularly relevant to religion, the development of an aesthetic of impossibles.

Since these historical examples engage highly relevant present concerns —the distinction of real and fake, truth and lie, map and territory—the threading essays show how these more or less classic examples might contribute to appreciating these contemporary concerns that are generated in the presence of difference.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Across the world from personal relationships to global politics, differences—cultural, religious, racial, gender, age, ability—are at the heart of the most disruptive and disturbing concerns. While it is laudable to nurture an environment promoting the tolerance of difference, Creative Encounters, Appreciating Difference argues for the higher goal of actually appreciating difference as essential to creativity and innovation, even if often experienced as stressful and complex. Even encounters that are apparently harmful and negatively valued (arguments, conflict, war, oppression) usually heighten the potential for creativity, innovation, movement, action, and identity.

Drawing on classic encounters that have played a significant role in the founding of the academic study of religion and the social sciences, this book explores in some depth the dynamics of encounter to reveal both its problematic and creative aspects and to develop perspectives and strategies to assure encounters both include the appreciation of difference and also are recognized as creative and innovative.

The two examples most extensively considered show that the academic study of the peoples indigenous to North America and to Australia involved creative constructions (concoctions) of primary examples in order to establish and give authority to academic theories and definitions. Rather than damning these examples as “bad scholarship,” this book considers them to be encounters engendering creative constructions that are distinctive to academia, yet their potential for harm must be understood.

Most important to the book is a persistent development of perspectives and strategies for understanding and approaching encounters in order to assure the appreciation of difference is accompanied by the potential for creativity and innovation. Specific perspectives and strategies are related to naming, moving, gesture, and play and, particularly relevant to religion, the development of an aesthetic of impossibles.

Since these historical examples engage highly relevant present concerns —the distinction of real and fake, truth and lie, map and territory—the threading essays show how these more or less classic examples might contribute to appreciating these contemporary concerns that are generated in the presence of difference.

More books from Lexington Books

Cover of the book Bigger Isn't Necessarily Better by Sam Gill
Cover of the book Life as Art by Sam Gill
Cover of the book Plurality and Perspective in Psychoanalysis by Sam Gill
Cover of the book Madness Unchained by Sam Gill
Cover of the book Tokyo by Sam Gill
Cover of the book Leadership in a Changing World by Sam Gill
Cover of the book Unbecoming Female Monsters by Sam Gill
Cover of the book The Man Who Knew God by Sam Gill
Cover of the book Children on the Threshold in Contemporary Latin American Cinema by Sam Gill
Cover of the book A Legislative History of the Taiwan Relations Act by Sam Gill
Cover of the book Wealth, Health, and Hope in African Christian Religion by Sam Gill
Cover of the book Melancholy and the Otherness of God by Sam Gill
Cover of the book The Function of Evil across Disciplinary Contexts by Sam Gill
Cover of the book Football Development Index by Sam Gill
Cover of the book Literary Societies Of Republican China by Sam Gill
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy