Nigel McLoughlin is Professor of Creativity & Poetics at the University of Gloucestershire. He is the author of five collections of poems, the latest of which is Chora: new & selected poems (Templar Poetry, 2009). He is editor of Iota poetry journal. In 2011 he was awarded a prestigious National Teaching Fellowship by the UK Higher Education Academy.

Modelling Creativity

How Might It Help Us Understand What We Do?

This article takes as its starting point a number of models of creativity, which can be broadly subdivided into cognitive (Boden, Csikszentmihalyi, Weisberg, Finke et al); social (Csikszentmihalyi, Boden); behavioural (Amabile); and those related to personality trait (Simonton); and examines their various relationships to each other, and to the writing process. The article will also draw on a number of cultural, social and psychological theorists such as Foucault, Habermas, Deleuze & Guattari, Sternberg, Kaufman & Pretz, and Callois, in order to yield insights into how the creative process performs its functions as a process which generates new knowledges within the discipline of creative writing (and artistic endeavours more generally) as well as new writing for the publishing industry and public consumption. The article will explore how those new knowledges might be received and judged in relation to the theories discussed, and touches on the epistemological roots of the discipline and the ontological status of the writer.