Martin Buber's Creative Manifesto

Reading Callaloo, Eating Callaloo:A Reflection, Lionel Trouillot Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely (bio) and Lyonel Trouillot (bio) DORCELY: As you know, the topic for this issue of Callaloo is callaloo, the idea of a mixture that produces a knowledge about itself that is consumable, usable, and surprising and familiar in its shape—that at least is my understanding/notion of a callaloo and its possible role in creative and intellectual life? What is yours? TROUILLOT: I am not sure that the word callaloo has the same meaning everywhere. In my mind, it stands for an aspect of popular and traditional Haitian culture. A thing that has been forever, that you feel a need to go back to and, in this case, to taste from time to time. DORCELY: Has Callaloo had any sort of role in black cultural production that you consider important? Has Callaloo had any impact on the dissemination of your work? TROUILLOT: No doubt the journal Callaloo has a very important role in the promotion of Black cultural production, at least in the academic community. Works of very important intellectuals, artists, and writers as much as those of new, and emerging, generations are published and discussed in every issue. In the simple terms, the more attention you bring to something, as Callaloo has done with its charge, the more alive and unmissable you make it. If it had only done that Callaloo would deserve our respect and our support. I look at Callaloo more as a permanent anthology and an intellectual forum, enabling me to keep in touch with Black cultural production: ideas, positions, theory, personal aesthetics. I go to it to meet new people and works. DORCELY: Do you have any insights to offer on the particular relation between visual image and text and creative text and theory? TROUILLOT: The relation between a creative text and theory is to me very important, very urgent. It is both a cage in which a writer might become trapped and a necessity of modernity. Personally, I am not at ease with a writer who seems "not to know what s/he is doing." I think that it is a very egotistical, almost reactionary, approach to go to the text as if it were the transcript of what I feel, of what is inside me. As a reader, I care about the text, the product of writing. The writer is only necessary so that the text can be. [End Page 166] And theory/Theory, then, is an instrument, one could even say a weapon, in analyzing the ideological dimension of the text. Literarity is also the territory of an ideological war. Theory helps us decide how to jump into the fight. On the other hand, creative writing can easily lose all its weight and aura of creativity if it becomes a domain to simply apply theoretical positions that precede the work. It is the [predicament and the] dilemma of the modern writer to hold this discussion between creativity and theory within literary works. Which becomes an element of a necessary but dangerous conversation. DORCELY: Of course, Haiti has experienced apparent changes in its political condition and process in recent years. How might you characterize these and their impact on cultural expression generally? What is the value of cultural expression in a context of heightened political conflict? In Haiti generally, broadly, and elsewhere? What is the elsewhere that you conceive of in the relation of culture to history to politics most closely approximates that of Haiti? TROUILLOT: I am not sure that many things have changed in Haiti. I think the only real conquest that came out of the fall of the Duvalier regime in 1986 is the right to speak freely. I dare say that Haitians living in Haiti have more opportunities and even more will to say what is on their minds than the citizens of the United States since September 11, 2001. The new freedom of speech has helped artists and writers to explore and expose a variety of themes—themes one would not have found there or found acknowledged before: homosexuality, urban violence, feminist issues, among others. There is also more fantasy in contemporary writing. Haitian literature...

Creative Geographies, methods of experimental ‘art-full’ research that have creative practices at their heart, have become increasingly vibrant of late. These research strategies, which see geographers working as and in collaboration with a range of arts practitioners, re-cast geography’s interdisciplinary relationship with arts and humanities subjects and practices as well as its own intradisciplinary relations. Amidst the vibrancy of this creative ‘re-turn’, a series of important questions are cohering around how exactly, and for whom, these methods are creative and critical. If the potential of creative methods for both researching and living differently is to be achieved then it is important we spend time reflecting on these and other questions. To begin these reflections this article tells three stories of creative doings that concern knowing, representing and intervening in place. These creative doings came about in the course of ethnographic work with the participatory arts project Caravanserai led by artist Annie Lovejoy, and among other outputs resulted in the collaborative artists’ book insites (2010). From a focus on these three sets of creative doings come larger concerns, principally around how the materialities, technologies and aesthetics of different art forms might enable various ways of knowing and conceptual experiments, as well as concerns around skill and expertise. These latter query what it is that geographers do and what it is that visual artists do, seeking to appreciate the expert as well as the amateur and what might be gained through learning to practice – in other words, how our creative methods might not only focus on finished products but also what can be learned in the processes of creative doings. Drawing the article together is a concern to understand better the work creative methods can do in the world in terms of enabling us to research and to live differently.

Muslims and Jews loomed large in Dante's Italy between 1250 and 1350. It is possible, indeed, to speak of Jewish and Islamic traditions visibly present in late medieval Italian culture and to which Dante's literary oeuvre offers a significant witness. However, Jewish and Islamic are equivocal terms, as they denote not only two religious traditions, but also their cultural heritage. Any effort to ascertain what these religions meant to Dante's contemporaries must thus reckon both with their limited, mostly distorted theological understanding of Muslim and Jewish religiosity as living traditions of faith, and with their mediated textual access to the cultural archives of Islamic and Jewish intellectual life. This chapter aims at such a dual reconnaissance of Judaism and Islam in the Italo-Christian Middle Ages, with selective recourse to Dante's works as a privileged historical source.

This book offers an academic but accessible study of six key aspects of the culture of science in post-Enlightenment Scotland, each viewed through the lens of the career of David Brewster. As well as being a distinguished natural philosopher, Brewster edited learned journals, wrote popular science books, was secretary, then vice-president and finally president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, was one of the founders of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and was principal at different times of both the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh. He was therefore at the very centre of Scotland’s scientific and intellectual life for much of the nineteenth century. His Evangelical religious faith and its impact on his scientific activities also allow us to explore the fascinating topic of science and religion in an era of fierce religious controversy and conflict. Despite its richness and importance, this period of the intellectual life of Scotland, lying as it does between the well-charted territories of the Enlightenment and the Victorian era, has not up till now been well served by historians. The book is based on original research using Brewster’s surviving correspondence, that of his many friends and associates, and the records of the organisations and societies with which he was involved.

The Animal in the Synagogue explores Franz Kafka’s sense of being a Jew in the modern world and its literary and linguistic ramifications. It falls into two parts. The first is organized around the theme of Kafka’s complex and often self-derogatory understanding and assessment of his own Jewishness and of the place the modern Jew occupies in “the abyss of the world” (Martin Buber). That part is based on a close reading of Kafka’s correspondence with his Czech lover, Milena Jesenska, and on a meticulous analysis, thematic, stylistic, and structural, of Kafka’s only short story touching openly and directly upon Jewish social and ritual issues, and known as “In Our Synagogue” (the title—not by the author). In both the letters and the short story images of small animals—repulsive, dirty, or otherwise objectionable—are used by Kafka as means of exploring his own manhood and the Jewish tradition at large as he understood it. The second part of the book focuses on Kafka’s place within the complex of Jewish writing of his time in all its three linguistic forms: Hebrew writing (essentially Zionist), Yiddish writing (essentially nationalistic but not committed to Zionism), and the writing, like his, in non-Jewish languages (mainly German) and within the non-Jewish religious and artistic traditions which inhered in them. The essay deals in detail with Kafka’s responses to contemporary Jewish literatures, and his pessimistic evaluation of those literatures’ potential. Essentially, Kafka doubted the sheer possibility of a genuine and culturally tenable compromise (let alone synthesis) between Jewishness and modernity. The book deals with topics and some texts that the flourishing, ever expanding Kafka scholarship has either neglected or misunderstood because most scholars had no real background in either Hebrew or Yiddish studies, and were unable to grasp the nuances and subtle intentions in Kafka’s attitudes toward modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature and their paragons, such as the major Zionist Hebrew poet H.N. Bialik or the Yiddish master Sholem Aleichem.

In this article, we present a creative, process-oriented, and multimodal qualitative enquiry project conducted by five undergraduate psychology students and their instructor. The project started as a course assignment on creative research methods aiming to explore the theme of inspiration. However, the project’s initial theme soon proved to be a device that catalysed the unfolding of the process rather than being an end in itself. Using photovoice, drawing, and collage-making, we engaged in a layered collaborative process of reflection, emotional sharing, and meaning-making. The writing of this article itself became an extension of the method, weaving our voices together into a shared narrative. Through this collaborative autoethnography, we engaged with a set of generative questions: How can creative methods help us explore psychological and social experience? In what ways might collaborative and multimodal enquiry catalyse emotional openness, reflexivity, and the co-creation of meaning? And how might such creative practices extend psychological research towards more relational and embodied understandings? We called our project Harmonic Chaos to reflect the balance that we experienced between chaos and self-organisation during the process.

Creative processes involve a repertoire of digital devices ranging from mobile phones over tablets and desktop computers to electronic whiteboards and wall-sized displays. While some integration across multiple devices is supported more sophisticated kinds of integration that connect devices and amplify their potential are limited. Many creative practices also rely on physical materials and tools. This will workshop investigate how the combination of physical and digital artifacts can support creative work practices. In this context, we propose to examine: Individual and social creative activities; Creativity methods; Emergence and transformation of design ideas; Generative design materials; Design constraints.

In this paper, we make practical and theoretical contributions to feminist adult education. Practically, we provide an overview of a three-hour arts- and play-based research workshop with research activities/tools that readers can further research to adapt to their own contexts. Theoretically, we explore how these creative practices can contribute to wider notions of relationality and ethics of care when integrated with Indigenous, decolonising, and intersectional, feminist approaches. After offering a rich description of arts- and play-based methods (photovoice, found poetry, collage, narrative métissage, river journey, and lego visioning), we discuss how creative methods and practices hold the potential to foster deeper connections, promote collective accountability, and support the ongoing work of decolonising education. We encourage future research to further explore the intersection of these practices with feminist adult education, and to continue expanding our collective understanding of how to cultivate care, responsibility, and reciprocity in teaching and learning settings.

This chapter will present an overview of several thinkers, connected to the Jewish political tradition, whose approaches have guided this author in the endeavor of dialogue and peacebuilding. Dialogue is essentially supported by social psychological theories which are at least implicitly reflective of idealist worldviews. From my experience though, as a political scientist actively engaged in the endeavor of interreligious dialogue and peacebuilding efforts at dialogue however noble must be tempered by a realist understanding of power dynamics. The focus will be mainly on the theories of Hans J. Morgenthau the seminal theoretician of the school of realism in the discipline of international relations, and the philosophy and approach of the renowned philosopher of dialogue Martin Buber. The political philosophy of John Herz will also be outlined with its balance between realism and idealism. Finally aspects of the thought of the international Judaic spokesman and rabbinical figure Jonathan Sacks will also be presented with his emphasis on the “dignity of difference”.

The main purpose of this study was creative accounting methods and their impact on the quality of accounting information. The method of this study was Descriptive – survey. The statistical population of this study was Al Rajhi Bank employees in KSA country that their number is 9400 persons. The sample size was estimated using Cochran formulate as 369 persons and they were selected by random cluster sampling. The tool to collect data was a researcher-made questionnaire was used. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by supervisor and a number of management and accounting professors and the reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by Cranach Alpha which was 0.82. The collected questionnaires were analyzed by One-sample T-test by SPSS software. Findings showed that creative accounting methods are used by the accountant ‎who has the characteristic of self-criticism and continuous development, and that knowledge ‎growth in the field of information technology generates creative ideas and practices in the ‎accounting field.‎ DOI: https://doi.org/10.52783/lpi.333

In this paper, Baljit Kaur and Effie Makepeace reflect on the creative methods, both theatre and music used in their participatory research projects conducted in East London and Malawi, respectively. The authors discuss the possibilities and ways in which co-production with participants, underpinned by feminist praxis and combined with creative practices, not only breaks the silence around stories of (sexual) violence, but can be used as an intervention and tool for young women and marginalised groups to represent their lived experiences of violence. This further allows participants to exercise creative control around which narratives emerge and how they are portrayed while also giving space for joy, resistance and triumph. Ultimately, the paper argues for the use of creative methods which offer a more hopeful and exciting direction in the pursuit of amplifying marginalised stories.

This paper offers a reflexive, practice-based process evaluation of arts-based participatory methods (ABM) within a community-led violence prevention project in an Indigenous Andean community on Amantaní Island, Peru. Working within a Participatory Action Research (PAR) framework, the project engaged women and men through six creative methods – problem and solution trees, life history mapping with stones and petals, role play, body mapping, visioning drawings and Most Significant Change storytelling – drawing on visual, narrative and embodied modalities. These methods supported participants to articulate structural harms, strengthen confidence and public voice and co-design locally grounded solutions. By tracing how these activities unfolded in practice, we explore the relational, affective and political dimensions of ABM, showing how creative practices enabled trust-building, emotional expression and shifts in dialogue and power. We also reflect critically on the ethical tensions that emerged when working within externally funded, time-limited structures in a setting marked by high levels of gendered violence and marginalisation. This study contributes to growing scholarship on feminist and decolonial approaches to participatory research, offering concrete insights into the transformative potential and limitations of arts-based practice in under-resourced contexts marked by gendered and structural violence.

Between Paradigm Shift Judaism and Neo-Hasidism

This paper presents the outcomes of an action research inquiry that set out to enhance first-year visual communication student learning of design theory and history through the incorporation of creative practice methods commonly used in practical design studio environments. As educators of both design theory and practice, our previous observations of how novice design students engaged with theory, compared to how they engaged with practice, led us to the decision that change was required to facilitate deeper understanding of theoretical discourse through the incorporation of creative practice methods. That was our ‘call to action’. The methods, described in the article as interventions, were introduced to support the critical and analytical thinking necessary to engage with theoretical discourse. They can also be thought of as learning strategies incorporated to enhance student learning and involved creative thinking exercises, visualization techniques, collaboration and audience presentation. Our findings demonstrate that student learning of design theory and history can be enhanced when creative practice methods are employed within a critical studies context and that discourse in design education is no longer the exclusive domain of the written word.

This article aims to examine the changes in concept, development and practices of community art in the Western culture from the end of 20th century to the beginning of 21st century, and based on theory of dialogical aesthetics by Grant H. Kester as well as using methodical examples of practicing artists, such as Jeanne van Heeswijk and the cultural association “Artway of Thinking“ (Stefania Mantovani and Federica Thiene), evaluate cases of community art projects taking place in Lithuania, especially focusing on the initiatives of the creative project “Friendly Zone“. The notion of Grant H. Kester“™s dialogical aesthetics as a dialogue-based socially-engaged creative practice helps to reveal forms and directions of socially-engaged art practices which are relevant today. Examining the project “Friendly Zone“, which takes part in S anciai (district of Kaunas, Lithuania), we can see a clear example of creative practice based on dialogical aesthetics with an ethical access to local inhabitants and their concerns. By working together with well-known community and socially-engaged art experts, Vita Gelūnienė and Edmund Carroll aim to apply methods of dialogical creativity: co-creative diagram of ““Artway of Thinking“ displays four stages of activities. It starts with self-recognition and placement of each member of the team as well as naming their functions in collective practice. Later, the context (place) is explored and monitored. Then, ideas are generated and implemented, the results of which are integrated. The artists also use the principle of a “headquarter“ from Jeanne van Heeswijk“™s practice, creating a certain meeting and dialogue-based point (house or inflatable tent) in public art projects. The text points out these advantages of the project: long-term effects and artists“™ residency in the area. The long-term project “Friendly Zone“, taking place in a single district, allows to test different creative methods involving public art, creates an environment of trust between local inhabitants and art initiatives taking place in the area. The process of examining and observing becomes a permanent task and, even, a way of life for the people involved. Nonetheless, difficulties and challenges also exist: the passivity of the members of local community towards certain activities as well as communication with both the outside (the press) and the local community. In both cases, this model of activity is not seen as the end in itself. Thus, it is necessary to strengthen the role of mediators by including people with skills of public relations into the team.