 The Creating Brain
The Neuroscience of Genius
Nancy C. Andreasen
Narrated by Kate Reading
Approximately 7 hours
Unabridged $20.00
buy from University Press Audiobooks
Book published by The Dana Foundation
Where does the unique originality we call “creativity” come from? Michelangelo was a stonecutter’s son, and Shakespeare was the son of a middle-class businessman. What causes some people to soar free of their limited lives and make astonishingly creative contributions?
In her elegant, fascinating tour of creativity and the brain, Nancy Andreasen, professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa and the winner of the National Medal of Science, shows us that creativity is not the same as intelligence nor the same as skill. Rather, we discover, the essence of creativity is to shape the materials of life in new and unexpected ways.
Andreasen explores how the human brain achieves creative breakthroughs—in art, literature, music, and science—the role of patron or mentors, the possession of an omnivorous vision, the value of not having a “standard education,” and the question of “genius and insanity.”
The author shows is what extraordinary creators such as Mozart, Henri Poincaré, and Coleridge, said about creating and how they reflect special qualities of creative people and the creative process. She describes her fascinating interview with the playwright Neil Simon in which he discussed how his mind works. Andreasen’s studies of participants in the Iowa Writer’s Workshop suggest that creativity may be inherited and sometimes associated with mental disorders, through neither is necessary for creativity to flourish.
The author proposes that creativity can and should be encouraged and offers advice to nurture it in both children and adults.
Nancy C. Andreasen, M.D., Ph.D., is the Andrew H. Woods Chair of Psychiatry and the Director of the Neuroimaging Research Center at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. She began her career as a professor of Renaissance literature, in which she earned her Ph.D. She has been editor-in-chief of The American Journal of Psychiatry since 1994, and is the author of two previous best-sellers, The Broken Brain, and Brave New Brain. In 2000, President Clinton awarded her the National Medal of Science.
Kate Reading (narrator) has narrated more than a hundred audiobooks for major companies and is the winner of multiple Earphones Awards (AudioFile).
REVIEWS:
“Our leading authority on creativity reveals herself with this splendid book as one of the most valuably creative persons of our time.”
—Kurt Vonnegut “This splendid, quick read should be a compulsory assignment for those students of the humanities who think themselves irrevocably bored with biology of any sort, including what they will find to be the fascinating links to the human brain's most powerful cultural tool, the capacity for extraordinary creativity.... I highly recommend it.”
—Floyd Bloom, Professor Emeritus of Neuropharmacology, The Scripps Research Institute and former editor-in-chief of Science “High intelligence is not at the heart of high creativity. More important to Nancy Andreasen are labile associative cortical regions (neural capacity for free association) that often veer their possessors toward depression or psychosis.”
—Nobel laureate James Watson, Chancellor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory “An expert analysis of the connections between extraordinary creativity, mental illness, intelligence and the social environment.... Andreasen leaves us with hope that the potential exists to enhance the creative capacity in our children and in ourselves.”
—Publishers Weekly “Drawing on her expertise as a scientist, physician, and scholar of literature, Nancy Andreasen gives a clear readable, synoptic account of current knowledge in human creativity.”
—Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Education and Cognition, Harvard Graduate School of Education “Nancy Andreasen's book comes as a welcome antidote to this inherent conservatism and shows us how creativity can be approached scientifically. In a market flooded with ‘new age' books on creativity, Dr. Andreasen's meticulously researched contribution comes as a breath of fresh air.”
—V.S. Ramachandran, MD, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California‚ÄìSan Diego, and author of A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness “I've been a novelist for 37 years and suddenly I understand myself better. Nancy Andreasen's The Creating Brain is a fascinating journey into the nature and secrets of the creative brain. The sections on Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci are amazing, and the concluding exercises could be life changing.”
—David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of The Brotherhood of the Rose and Creepers “An accessible discussion of a complex concept that should provoke discussion because the author locates creativity in the person rather than in the relation between the creative agent and his/her community.”
—Jerome Kagan, Daniel and Amy Starch Research Professor of Psychology, Harvard University and Director, Mind/Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative “Psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and writer, Nancy Andreasen guides us to the frontier, creativity and the brain. Setting the absorbing historical context from Greece to the twentieth century, analyzing case studies, and citing her own seminal work, Andreasen uses neuroscience to approach the near-mystical mechanisms that define our humanity. What is the relationship of creativity to intelligence? Is creativity nature or nurture? How is creativity related to mood disorder or schizophrenia? How can we become more creative ourselves? In accessible, graceful prose, Andreasen draws us into this brave new adventure.”
—Ira Black, Professor and Chair, Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School “Our observations during forty years as teachers of music using Shinichi Suzuki's philosophy of early childhood education (Ability Development from Age Zero) find resonance in these scientific discoveries”
—William and Doris Preucil, Past Presidents of the Suzuki Association of the Americas TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Preface
1: The Nature of Creativity: The Ingenious Human Brain
2: In Search of Xanadu: Understanding the Creative Person and the Creative Process
3: Reaching Xanadu: How Does the Brain Create?
4: Genius and Insanity: Creativity and Brain Disease
5: What Creates the Creative Brain?
6: Building Better Brains: Creativity and Brain Plasticity
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