 So, this is the second module and we are on to the second lecture of this second module. I thought it will be beneficial if I give you an overview of the set of lectures that are going to be given to you, shared with you. This will enable some kind of clarity as we move along. This module of course is centered on the writer's vocation, the changing cultural demands on the writer that is what we would focus on. The first part of this module deals with creative writing in the academy versus writing independently and when we use the word writing independently, we actually are referring to freelance writing. So, we will look at it institutionally. In the second part, we will deal with the work that has been done in IIT Bombay in the course titled Creativity and Creative Writing. The third part deals with our focus on contemporary Indian context and the idea is to generate new possibilities and share new voices with you. So, now I will move towards the second lecture which is titled Creativity, Writing, Creative Writing, Recent Viewpoints. Within this again, what I have done is to deal with emergence of creative writing as a discipline within literary studies. I have also looked at the connection of creative writing to creative studies. That is another field which has started, which has shaped the emergence of this term creative writing and also brought together some of the issues that we had handled in module 1 regarding developmental psychology and its focus on human potential. And so, with these convergences, I have tried to provide you a way of looking at your own creativity. So, it is not merely a report of institutional discussions and terminologies, but it is also a way of helping you understand the underlying issues that impinge on the creative venture. So, now let us look at some of the important studies that have been published very recently regarding the issue of creative writing and its sort of place within the institution of literary studies. When we use the term literary studies, we are referring to the fact that literary studies require critical analysis. There has been a certain tradition of studying literature and it has been more or less an analytical tradition, which goes back to the Greek, ancient Greek philosophical systems of thought. What Paul Dawson has done, however, is to locate the rise of this term creative writing and its ties to this analytical discourse of literary studies. So, obviously, there is tension between these two because creative writing is, you know, focused on creating something new, something new, which is aesthetically exciting, is also a different kind of mode of communication. And literary studies thrives on scholarship analysis, although there are theoreticians who also have defied these boundaries within the critical discourse, especially within the phase of rise of theory. So, I am not suggesting that this is a watertight separation nor is Paul Dawson suggesting that, in fact, he tries to show how these creative writing programs show a very deep tussle within the literary studies establishment right from its earliest formalizations in terms of the creative aspect of literature, that is, the aesthetic aspect of doing, creating something new and analysis of that. So, there has been that kind of tension right from the outset. And therefore, let me also point out that when he uses the term literary studies, he actually refers to the 20th century framework and therefore, perhaps one can say that he is locating it within the rise of formalism, where there was great focus given to the internal dynamics of what you write, how you write, what are the metaphors, what are the rhetorical devices that are used, so on and so forth. So, one of which there was this sharp rise of theory with continental influences. So, he places the rise of creative writing within the rise of theory, thereby suggesting that actually theory, the reaction to theory is expressed by the in terms of the rise of creative writing as a discipline, because it goes back to the creative aesthetic roots of literary studies, that is, that seems to be his contention. Although, you know, subsequently, there are many other issues that have come up and that have influenced creative writing courses. One is the canon debate, the other is also the, you know, notion of culture and cultural wars between different value systems, and then also the issue of institutional location. Where are you located, which country, which kind of academy, what are the possibilities of doing creative work within that academy. So, he has brought all these issues into the discourse, and therefore, it makes his study very, very important and very interesting. So, he has looked at these issues and indicated that they, on the one hand, has been rise of creative writing courses, but there also has been great deal of skepticism about their quality or about their value. And so, I think we will pick up one or two issues that he has identified or one or two metaphors that he has evoked in order to show why there is this gap in terms of dialogue between literary studies and creative writing. He seems to suggest that it goes into or goes back into perhaps, notion from romanticism about the writer and the agony of the writer. I remember one particular line from Shelley, which always hunted me, I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed. So, that sort of he seems to suggest that from then on, there has been this separation in terms of the metaphor of the garret and the metaphor of the ivory tower. And the writer is kind of linked to the garret because it is the writer who inhabits the garret and the ivory tower refers to the privileged position of academicians who are somewhat protected from the ups and downs of life and there is a kind of stabilized existence that they lead. I thought it will be useful for you to look at the word garret and also, you know, you can also look at lots of paintings and pictures and we will also refer to some music that evokes this notion of the garret as a romantic idea from when I say romantic idea I am referring to notions from romanticism, this whole literary movement called romanticism. But in terms of the word itself, I have tried to identify some of the connotations. It actually in terms of its concrete meaning, it is an attic or a room in or near the roof of a house. It is a slightly separated space within a house. It allows for retreat for a writer which is and also frees the writer from distractions and it is associated with the writer's necessary distance from the world at large and therefore, it is linked with writing. So, this sense of certain separation that the writer needs whether it is in the mind or it is in the physical space and also therefore, certain amount of deprivation, certain amount of sacrifice that the writer has to make. This is associated with this idea or metaphor of the garret as opposed to the ivory tower metaphor which again, you know, shows a certain heightened ground from which academics is undertaken or is done. So, it is a lofty location. Ivory happens to be a very ambivalent symbol and my sense is that perhaps that is because it is linked to exclusiveness and rarity. It is also symbol of protected activity perhaps at a high price or may be elitism or disciplinary rigidities and it is made associated with academic world actually in general and since we are focused on literary studies and therefore, he seems to suggest that there is this somewhat hostile kind of standoff between these two metaphors and they actually gain a very different sense when creative writing is located in the academy. So, you know, if suppose the notion of the garret existed is because the writer was not part of the academy. So, this is a very changed scenario and he still locates the kind of lack of dialogue that still exists between creative writing as an academic venture and literary studies as a venture. There is not too much of give and take according to him and also some of the recent studies that have come out they also established the same ground. So, now, so far as we see it you know from outside because Dawson is talking about non-Indian institutional locations, I am not suggesting it is only western because he I think also is not exactly placed in the same way, but certainly it is a non-Indian institutional framework. When we look at it, we are interested in looking at what it holds for us. There is of course, distinct difference between the two activities that one would have to admit and therefore, the methodologies of teaching, the methodologies of undertaking discussion these vary and so that needs to be negotiated and again within our institutional framework the split between creative and critical is a sharper one, I feel. And in module one, we have actually examined this issue you know in terms of the lack of nurturance of creative processes within our own academic institutions, but what Paul Dawson is trying to do is to also give us a historical overview of this somewhat new phenomenon of teaching of creative writing. People have always been creative and they have always written what they believed in writing, but it is new location within academic institutions, which means it is now being mainstreamed as an important activity. His he in his book provides a rational historically nuanced reason for it and so this is what I will now share. So, there is this tension that we have already noticed through the metaphor of the Garrett and the ivory tower, he is trying to suggest that it should not be such a compartmentalized scenario because the two are deeply interconnected and we agree with that point of view. He says that it is a 20th century phenomenon you know teaching of creative writing and according to him and this is a very interesting point. He says that it is linked to increasing importance of the concept of creativity in modern English studies and later on he goes on to point out not only in modern English studies, but also in many other spheres of you know activity and knowledge generation. This term has become a very, very central term of inquiry. So let us see what he has to say about creative writing within literary discourse, so he according to him there was a shift from the focus on the key term imagination to creativity because the term imagination which again itself is a post enlightenment term which was linked to literary activities, but that began to sort of also have fairly ambivalent associations are not necessarily associations that showed the strength of this term or the strength of imagination as a way of getting into or expressing events around the writer or any other imaginative person. So according to him this ambivalence slowly led to the replacement of the term imagination by this term creativity which is according to him the productive imagination fully secularized and divested of any ambivalent connotations. At this point it is enough to say that creativity replaced the term imagination because of his positive associations and this is something that Raymond Williams also pointed out and we had evoked that definition where he said that the term creative and creativity is one of the most positive words in the English language with absolutely no negative association of any kind. So again it is corroborated what he has to say Dawson has to say is corroborated by what Raymond Williams also pointed out and that is fairly important endorsement. So now according to him the other thing that one can take note of is the fact that when this focus on creativity shifted and the term became very popular it also actually was a term that was linked to the study of processes rather than only the product. So especially with reference to creative writing programs and since we are also focused on the processes I think that is why we have again picked up this idea from Dawson in terms of the historical framework that he has developed. The second connected discussion that we have identified and separated is of course related to creativity studies. Now this also Dawson has himself mentioned. So we are actually also examining some of those ideas from our own perspective. Creativity studies in some ways you can say how can you separate it from you know developmental psychology because this is also a branch of psychology and cognitive sciences you know and that is absolutely true. But the reason we have separated this is because this indeed seems to have its very distinct trajectory very concrete distinct sort of orientation starting with J. P. Guilford's very famous essay titled creativity which was published in 1950 in American psychology and that seemed to have opened this whole field of creativity studies in a manner that had not happened prior to that. At the same time the reason we have separated this out is because the cognitive sciences are also involved in this whole outlook of towards creativity. So Guilford is credited with the inauguration of this massive interest in creativity studies and the key concept that he himself developed was the concept of a structure of intelligence which involves a number of mental processes. So he was not really completely focused on creativity itself you know but he was interested in understanding the structure of human intelligence and he developed along with many other ideas you know there is a long list, a long inventory of what he considers very vital in terms of the structure of intelligence and these mental processes. He has identified it, he has also fine tuned it and there have been lots of very important debates about it but for our purpose what he also proposed was a divergent thinking as an extremely important component of this whole process. And what divergent thinking involved was the ability to generate multiple solutions to a problem you know and therefore it also was used as a synonym for creativity. So for our purpose this term divergent thinking becomes extremely important because it enables us to understand how creativity requires you know this opening up and generating multiple possibilities. Now this can be discussed later on in different ways but Dawson has undertaken some kind of explanation which we will look at. Now convergent thinking is also an important attribute of human intelligence but what it does is to actually focus on the ability to deduce a single solution to a problem and it is more bound by rules as opposed to divergent thinking that actually opens up any particular problem solving situation you know in it opens it up for numerous perspective. So it is not rule bound to that extent. Now in creativity studies another thing which is really notable is its belief or its you know not only just believe you know these are seen as scientific studies and what they have tried to suggest is that there is creativity is a latent faculty in everyone and it is applicable to every field of human endeavor. An idea that we have also discussed with you in module 1 in our own you know open and dead intuitive fashion but these are more systematic studies so if you are interested in any of these ideas you can really pursue this line of thinking. The consequence of this notion of creativity as a latent faculty has also led to lots and lots of theorizations. One of which is related to some of the recent articulations that I thought I would share with you because we have been talking about globalization and some of the new possibilities that have emerged in this very chaotic phase of our history. So one of this is related to the concept of general human creativity in the climate of rapid economic changes. Creativity becomes a key term and it also becomes a motor for economic expansion. This is one way of looking at it but I thought I would share this with you because Dawson goes on to quote Richard Florida and his study the rise of the creative class in which he very emphatically points out that creativity because it is a driving force of economic growth in terms of influence the creative class has become the dominant class in society. So it gives a very different color to what we are saying no doubt because when you enlarge it in this manner there are other political issues of a dominant class whether it is right to have a dominant class like this whether it is right to have a definition like this. So there are whole lot of political issues that emerge but I at the same time think it is valuable to look at these discourses because we are also so intermeshed in the era of globalization that it is important for us to see how different people look at different endeavors including creativity which is so close to human temperament and at the same time what are the institutional manifestations what are the institutional definitions of this. Actually Florida he went on to in club many different groups within this framework of notion of creativity being a generalized human endeavor he felt that the core of creative class includes people in science and engineering architecture and design education arts music and entertainment whose economic function is to create new ideas new technology and or new creative content. So this is how he defines it he also says that around this core there oscillates a broader group of creative professionals in business and finance law health care and related fields. So it is a very enlarged definition and Dawson has suggested that this whole milieu of creative concerns has influenced the notion of creative writing courses also although it actually emerges from within the discourses of literary studies but there are also these other areas of knowledge which have influenced it and also made it extremely popular. So now what I would like to do is to point out how Dawson has looked at the teaching of creative writing in terms of the notion of divergent thinking. He feels that much of creative writing teaching takes place within the workshop module which actually is a metaphor for the mental process of divergent thinking because it provides different writers who are part of that classroom situation. It provides them with a range of different options offered by fellow students often on the same idea that is being discussed thus training them to internalize this process in the act of composition. So this is again a very very interesting important idea it also sort of enables us to look at possibilities, diversities, pluralities in a much more productive manner. Another idea that I think we now want to refer to and this is not part of Dawson's framework. This is related to some of the issues from cognitive sciences that we again wanted to share with you. This is again as you know these are part of our reports on the way this branch of knowledge has grown. David Morley he refers to the arguments of cognitive science that the literary mind is the fundamental mind. According to Morley the literary mind is a fundamental mind. Now of course we are not saying the literary mind is the exclusive preserve of those who go to the university we are not saying that we are also suggesting that there is certain kind of universal presence of literary linguistic activity which is very very expressive in nature. So along with that he says that it is not a separate kind of mind alongside many other neuroscientists Mark Turner contends that story is a basic principle of mind and parable is the root of the human mind. Now I think you know the word parable but if not you can check out its meaning and what actually it refers to is this whole you know preoccupation our human preoccupation with narrating a story which has an implied meaning or implied value it is close in some ways to metaphoric ability also. So he says that story is a basic principle of mind and the parable is the root of the human mind of thinking, knowing, acting, creating and plausibly of speaking. So that is also very interesting for you to think about and also see you know while you are creating characters for your novels or short stories or plays you know whether how one can capture this ability also because after all it is not really as I said exclusive preserve of only those who write or who go to the university. The other observation which is very very interesting and it comes from the cognitive sciences is related to how neurologically we are changed by the experience or experience of writing as much as we are by reading and creativity and metaphoric thinking are ubiquitous and although that is so but a writer fine tunes it and therefore for a writer metaphor is an art of attention seeking. So the more powerful metaphor you would create the better you would be able to convey what you want to convey and writing comes out of this great creative tension between what you experience and how you want to articulate it. So this is a way of a tension seeking of asking you to perceive something afresh that is the demand on writing. Now I would shift in some way shift back to developmental psychology which also is very close to creativity studies as I said you know you can even say contest as to why we have separated the two but I think we have separated the two for the reasons that I gave you earlier and we are suggesting an interface between these two. The idea is to extend what Dawson had to suggest by adding our own insights and also then finding a blend which works for us better because we are really located in a very very different institutional framework and it is never enough to only academically look at ideas. If we want to be creative we will have to be rigorous but at the same time we will have to take our own chances. So from that point of view I am going to refer to the ideas we had referred to earlier regarding developmental psychology and add one or two ideas further so that we have a blend of possibilities or we have the possibility of working out a blend. So in terms of developmental psychology we had talked about the creative state of mind and experience and knowledge in the lecture title learning from knowledge systems and in that lecture the whole you know emphasis of developmental psychology on infancy and childhood stages that we had tried to bring out. The purpose of those ideas and placing them in the first module was really related to helping the students take their own personal experience seriously. So this was a way of bringing systems of thought that endorse the complex set of things that happen to different individuals. Trajectory indeed is unique in each case but the human sciences or you know sciences like psychology what they do is to give you a generalized sense of some universal patterns. This is again a very contested field because what can anything be called universal but within a broad area of agreement I think there are notions of developmental psychology that cut across national variation. So therefore with that assumption we had already discussed these ideas with you. We had also discussed Shikshanth Mihaly's ideas in order to show how with that orientation of developmental psychology some of the theoreticians and practitioners have been focused on the growth potential of individuals. So how do we define certain states of mind or being that help us understand our potential and to tap it further. So that is what we had done in that first module and at the same time we were extremely keen on talking about our own context, the diversity of our cultural diversity, blends of languages, academic realm through a focus on the evolving sense of the self. So we looked at all these you know the language issue, the academic issue, the larger diversity of our framework. But our idea was to help you you know locate yourself within this complex situation in order to again find your own sense of what your potential is all about. That is always it can be a difficult thing sometimes it is not, sometimes it is very difficult. So the next idea that we had also looked at was Shikshanth Mihaly's you know notion of the psychology of optimal experience, mainly from this perspective of finding your bearings and evolving sense of self. And for evolving sense of the self we had looked at Ericsson's revision of Freudian psychoanalytical insights through psychosocial approach. This blend of the psychological which is self directed and social which is other directed. So we had picked that up for your scrutiny and again the focus was on the significance of child rearing experience, social relationships and cultural influences on the development of the ego or self. And what we had also highlighted was this issue of crisis and growth pattern which unfolds in each stage. And that was kind of interesting because on the one hand one is growing in terms of the physical changes and at the same time there are social frameworks and institutions that are available through which these changes can be worked out. In fact they are created in order to take care of these changing needs of the human being. So we had looked at that and also we had focused on the crisis and growth pattern. So it is not just crisis that we had looked at but also the growth pattern attending a particular stage of crisis without which growth cannot occur. So in other words the idea was to sort of establish the fact that you have to engage with activities, you have to engage with contradictions, paradoxes, opposing pulls in order to move forward. One should not really feel afraid of dealing with these kinds of issues. One is taught not to deal with complexity but to sort of develop convergent thinking more sharply. So then finally I would say that what we have then in that segment and earlier in terms of developmental psychology what we have tried to do is to look at the transformations that are possible and therefore sense of authenticity that you feel through reflection and also through exploration of your inner drives. From Shiksanthi Mihai we had used the term autotelic. Now we want to add just one more idea which we had discussed in the first module with reference to some of the books and films about growing up that we had discussed and this is an idea from Abraham Maslow regarding the notion of self-actualization which refers to the discovery and fulfillment of one's full potential. We thought we would give you the sense of you know how this pyramid that he has worked out and we have referred to the website towards the end. Basically Maslow's point of view is that human motivation it does not stay you know it does not remain static. There is always this urge to have multiple sort of desires fulfilled and in a certain way he has given these hierarchy or hierarchy of needs that seems to be the basis of his model. What he seems to suggest that the highest point of our search is sort of located in the notion of self-actualization which of course cannot occur unless these other needs like physiological needs, safety needs, need for love and belonging, esteem all of these also need fulfillment. You may not have such a clean clear cut separation between them but they sort of keep brewing within us all the time and according to him self-actualization shows human potential at its best. So this motivation towards self-actualization which requires according to him morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts all of these show the fulfillment of human potential and this motivation again is universally present. Again we would not go into debates of you know this notion of self-actualization whether self-actualization is possible in highly disturbed societies or it is a you know parameter of a very highly stabilized society. We do not really know I do not think there are easy answers but for us for part of fairly stable academic situation but a very unstable world I think it certainly gives you a point to reflect on and two or three other quotations we have selected because they show Maslow's wisdom in dealing with life. Again as I said it is really not prescriptive we are not into prescriptions but we are only interested in sharing possibilities and also productive ideas. So here is Maslow's take on some of the life-related issues which also are issues of human potential. So the first quotation from this website that we picked up is related to how you view yourself. If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being then I warn you that you will be unhappy for the rest of your life. You can think about it but I do feel that he is trying to suggest that we need to look at our own self in a much more dynamic fashion. We should not underestimate ourselves and at the same time it is really not an easy thing if you are placed in a situation where the world judges you or your academic framework judges you or your social framework judges you and that judgment does not sit comfortably with you surely you will have a big tussle. But I think finally the wisdom of Maslow comes from the fact that you have to believe in yourself and you have to in sometimes fight many adversities in that process. The second quote from Maslow is related to mental wellness. I think it is also very close to what Shikshanti Mehai said about autotelic activity. The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness. If you recollect Shikshanti Mehai had talked about autotelic activity also as an activity where there is complete absorption in the given moment and without this full concentration in a given moment in the kind of activity you have undertaken it is really not possible to do something valuable but he also relates it to mental wellness. Maybe the very encouraging thought from Maslow we are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, colleagues and that seems to be my belief also thank you.