Three-D Issue 27: MeCCSA 2018: Creativity and Agency
Janet Jones & Philip Hammond
We are delighted that the next MeCCSA conference will be hosted by the School of Arts and Creative Industries at London South Bank University, from 10—12 January 2018. The theme is ‘Creativity and Agency’. Among our keynote speakers who have already confirmed are Prof. David Gauntlett (University of Westminster), Prof. Angela McRobbie (Goldsmiths, University of London) and Prof. Andy Miah (University of Salford) and we hope to announce more over the coming months.
We will be inviting proposals for papers, panels and other presentations in due course which engage with the various individual, organisational, social, political, economic and technological dimensions of creativity and agency.
‘Creativity’ is a concept that is, at least implicitly, central to many courses in our subject area, entailing analysis of ‘creative industries’ and including elements of ‘creative practice’ as part of the curriculum. Yet it remains a highly contested concept, from the official promotion of the ‘creative economy’ through to more recent debates about the commodification of everyday ‘creative labour’ via social media.
As Raymond Williams observed in Keywords, an understanding of ‘creativity’ in terms of making and transformation as positive capacities of human (as opposed to divine) agency, emerged in the Renaissance and continued to be extended and modified in different way through to the twentieth century. How has the concept developed in the twenty-first century? How should we interpret today’s creative landscape? – questions that MeCCSA 2018 will explore.
The School of Arts and Creative Industries at London South Bank University encompasses a wide range of sub-disciplines and reflecting that we are keen to include a variety of thematic strands for the conference programme. We will welcome proposals which cover other topics of interest to our discipline in terms of research and pedagogy.
For any enquiries please contact MeCCSA2018@lsbu.ac.uk or visit https://www.meccsa2018.org