CREATIVITY: SUFFERING AND GRIT

Associate Professor David Priilaid, School of Management Studies, University of Cape Town

The most direct route to imaginative insight lies primarily in understanding how genuinely creative people develop their big ideas. Focusing on the lives of contemporary writers, musicians and artists, this course examines the elements of the creative process. Artists are typically outsiders, marked by the extent of their suffering, resilience and love for the work they do. Using Tom Waits, J.K. Rowling, the Fagen and Becker duo, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Talk Talk, Bill Evans and Ernest Hemingway as case studies, these two lectures will consider the role of artistic grit as well as the effect of suffering (including instability and pathology) on art and creativity.

LECTURE TITLES

1. Artistic grit: how great artists prevail against the odds to develop great work

2. Suffering as the handmaiden of creativity: the role of depression, madness and addiction

Recommended reading

Priilaid, D. 2018. Creativity Explained: From Music and Art to Innovation in Business. Cape Town: Peter Flack Productions.