The Science of Creativity

John Hendrix is a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator. His latest book is a graphic novel called The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. In this episode, John and I talk about his new book and about his own creative process. John’s work has appeared in numerous publications, such as Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Esquire, The New York Times, Time Magazine, National Geographic, among many others. His images also appeared in advertising campaigns for ESPN/ABC, AT&T, Pfizer, and Target.

I interviewed John about his creative process for my 2025 book Learning to See: Inside the World's Leading Art and Design Schools.

John is the Kenneth E. Hudson Professor of Art and the founding Chair of the MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture program at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

For more information:

John Hendrix Illustration: www.johnhendrix.com

The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C. S. Lewis & J. R. R. Tolkien

Sawyer's new book Learning to See will be published in April, 2025.

Music by license from Soundstripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal"

by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

The perfect podcast for the Christmas season! This is a special Christmas episode of The Science of Creativity. Many of the traditions that we love—gift-giving, Santa Claus, kissing under the mistletoe—were invented across the generations, and are always evolving. This special holiday episode gives you the creation story of the secular, non-religious traditions that we celebrate at Christmas. The collective creation of these Christmas traditions is what I call social innovation, a kind of collective creativity where everyone plays a role. Five hundred years ago, Christmas was a wild party, where young men got drunk and roamed in packs around town. Children didn’t start getting gifts until about 200 years ago. In the late 1800s, the Santa Claus myth was invented, along with the elves and the sleigh and the workshop at the North Pole. It started two thousand years ago, in Ancient Rome, it picked up steam in the 1800s, and we’re still creating new Christmas traditions today.

Chapters

0:00 Teaser

1:11 Introduction to the Special Episode

2:12 Tradition and Invention

5:28 Wassailing

12:23 Toys

16:06 Santa Claus

21:25 The War on Christmas

25:24 The Holiday for Everyone

27:54 Closer

28:44 Outro

Music by License from Soundstripe:

• “Blues for Oliver” by Cast of Characters
• “Silent Night” by Cast of Characters
• “O Christmas Tree” by O Christmas Tree Jazz Trio
• “Just Walkin’” by Ryan Saranich
• “Uptown Lovers” by AFTERNOONZ 

Notes

The Pagan Origins of Christmas: Saturnalia, Yule, and Other Pre-Christian Traditions | History Cooperative

Wikipedia entries: “The war on Christmas” and “Wassailing” and “Syncretism” 

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Kit White is the author of the international best-selling book 101 Things To Learn In Art School, which is based on his experience as a professor of art for 21 years at the Pratt Institute in New York. Many of the original drawings from the book are in the collection of the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery at the Corcoran School of Art and Design, George Washington University. He’s had more than 25 solo exhibitions of his artworks in galleries and museums. His artworks are in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and many others. He's frequently featured in magazines, newspapers, and television, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Nation. In addition to Pratt, he’s taught at Vanderbilt, McGill, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Frick Collection. His work is the subject of a monograph by Carter Ratcliff, Line Into Form.

For more information:

101 Things To Learn In Art School

www.kitwhiteart.com

Music by license from SoundStripe:

• "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Ellen Winner is a retired Professor of Psychology at Boston College and Senior Research Associate at Harvard's Project Zero. She’s one of the world's leading experts in the psychology of art. She's studied the development of artistic abilities in childhood; how to teach art in high school; and what goes on in the mind when people are making art and perceiving art. She's also studied giftedness, dyslexia, left brain and right brain differences, and Alzheimer’s. 

She's the author or co-author of ten books, including three that we talk about in the episode: Invented Worlds: The Psychology of the Arts (1982), and How Art Works: A Psychological Exploration (2019). She's probably best-known for her 2007 book Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education (2007). 

For more information: 

Ellen Winner’s website

Keith Sawyer’s review of Ellen Winner’s career

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Dr. Erica Halverson is one of the world’s leading experts in arts education. She’s a trained actor who’s founded two successful acting programs for school children, one in Chicago and one at her current home, the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She’s an expert in helping children realize their creativity. Her research shows that children learn much more from the arts than just painting or acting. They learn profound skills like collaboration, how to translate ideas into reality, and—most profound of all—they learn who they are. We’ll talk about her book called How the Arts Can Save Education.

For more information:

Dr. Halverson’s book How the Arts Can Save Education

Dr. Halverson’s website

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Episode notes and content Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Dr. Mike Sharples has been studying computers and creativity for over 40 years. He’s an expert in education, technology, and innovation. In the 1970s, he was one of the first people to argue that computers might someday be able to write stories. We talk about his 2022 book Story Machines: How Computers Have Become Creative Writers. He’s a psychologist who studies how people create stories and how readers understand stories. His 2002 book How we write: Writing as creative design tells us how (human) authors do their work. In 1993, he told a journalist that a computer would write a novel within twenty years. (Yes, it has happened, but you probably won’t enjoy reading it!) In this interview, Dr. Sharples gives us a refreshing perspective on artificial intelligence and generative AI.

For more information:

Mike Sharples web site: www.mikesharples.com

The book Story Machines: 

The book How we write

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Today’s episode is about creativity and entrepreneurship. Our guest, Dr. Kenan Sahin, founded several companies that are known for their technological innovation. His first company, Kenan Systems, sold in 1999 for $1.54 billion in stock. When he founded it in 1984, he was a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and many of the early employees were MIT graduates with expertise in artificial intelligence and in decision support systems. Our conversation ranges widely over topics that will be of interest to both creativity researchers and to aspiring entrepreneurs. Dr. Sahin’s companies have developed innovations in cutting-edge fields including artificial intelligence and battery technology. He is an expert in managing R&D organizations. Dr. Sahin has just published a book called Lean Startup to Lean Company to Rich Exit.

For more information

https://books.forbes.com/books/lean-startup-to-lean-company-to-rich-exit/

Dr. Sahin’s Wikipedia page

Music by license from SoundStripe

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Messier is a smartphone app designed with input from a team of scientific advisors including one of today’s guests, Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, and also Dr. James Kaufman, who was the guest in episode 6 of “The Science of Creativity.” In this episode, I interview Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle and co-founder Josh Seidenfeld. We talk about ways you can enhance your creativity through daily practice.

Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle is a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. She is the Director of the Creativity and Emotions Lab. She’s an expert in the psychology of art, creativity, and emotions.

Josh Seidenfeld is the Chief Executive Officer of Messier. Josh has his MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He’s been a consultant on business development, fundraising, and corporate climate policy, including at both Meta (formerly Facebook) and Apple.

For more information:

Messier’s web site

Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle’s web site

Music by license from SoundStripe:

• "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich Copyright

(c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

For over 40 years, Bob Mankoff has been a driving force of comedy and satire at some of the most honored publications in America, including The New Yorker and Esquire. He has devoted his life to discovering just what makes us laugh and seeks every outlet to do so, from developing The New Yorker’s web presence to integrating it with algorithms and A.I.

For 20 years, Mankoff was the cartoon editor at The New Yorker magazine, which is famous for its single-frame black-and-white cartoons. In 2005, he created the “Cartoon Caption Contest” and it’s still in every issue of the magazine. Each week, the magazine publishes a cartoon illustration, but with no caption. Then, magazine readers come up with caption ideas and send them to the magazine. The contest is so successful that they get 5,000 caption submissions a week. Mankoff has partnered with Microsoft and Google Deep Mind to develop machine learning algorithms to help identify the funniest captions.

In 2018, Mankoff became president of cartoonstock.com, the largest cartoon licensing source on the planet. In addition to being a successful creator, Mankoff has studied the psychology of what makes us laugh. He’s developed insights into the creative process, for example in his 2002 book The Naked Cartoonist: A New Way to Enhance Your Creativity and his New York Times bestselling memoir, How About Never – Is Never Good For You?: My Life In Cartoons. His story was the focus of the 2015 HBO documentary Very Semi-Serious.

Mankoff is currently the cartoon editor at the weekly online newsletter Air Mail.

Chapters

0:00 Elaine from Seinfeld

3:58 The New Yorker magazine cartoons

8:45 Artificial Intelligence

12:20 The movie "Semi Serious"

19:00 A.I. and humor

27:40 The Cartoon Caption Contest

31:40 The Seinfeld episode "The Cartoon"

38:50 Having a sense of humor

44:10 A.I. and the Cartoon Caption Contest

51:10 The Reverse Cartoon Caption Contest

55:32 Closer

56:15 Until next time!

For further information:

The Naked Cartoonist: A New Way to Enhance Your Creativity

How About Never—Is Never Good for You?: My Life in Cartoons

Bob Mankoff’s web site

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich 

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Josh Linkner is an innovation consultant, keynote speaker, venture capitalist, author, and entrepreneur. He’s been a professional jazz musician since high school, he attended the Berklee College of Music, and he's performed over 1,000 concerts around the world. He’s been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million. In this interview, we talk about his 2011 book Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity and his 2021 book Big Little Lies: How Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized Results. Josh also talks about his “Find A Way” innovation framework.

For more information:

www.joshlinkner.com

Check out Josh’s podcast “Mic Drop”

And his 2021 book: Big Little Lies: How Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized Results

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Dr. Sawyer interviews the legendary creativity research Professor James Kaufman, of the University of Connecticut. Dr. Kaufman is an influential researcher who’s published 50 books and hundreds of scientific articles. Dr. Kaufman talks about his new book, The Creativity Advantage, where he develops his theory of self-transformational creativity. This kind of creativity has immense benefits to your mental health and well-being. Self-transformational creativity enhances your life in five ways: self-insight; healing; connection; drive; and legacy.

Chapters:

0:00 Teaser

0:37 Welcome

1:03 Introducing Professor Kaufman

2:31 The interview

3:14 What’s different about creativity research

5:39 Creativity in theater

15:56 How to edit a book

26:38 The Creativity Advantage

32:11 Self insight

36:06 Healing

39:09 Connection

44:07 Drive

46:24 Legacy

52:58 Creativity advice for next week

54:49 Closer

55:20 Outro

For more information:

James Kaufman's web site

Music by license from SoundStripe:

• "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

In this episode, Dr. Sawyer talks with Professor Danah Henriksen of Arizona State University. Dr. Henriksen and Dr. Sawyer are the co-authors of the book Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation, published by Oxford University Press in 2024. Dr. Henriksen is an expert on creativity and teaching. She is a top scientist who does rigorous studies of creativity. She’s published well over a hundred scientific journal articles, book chapters, and academic presentations. Dr. Henriksen studies the seven habits of mind of exceptional creators, with a special focus on teaching, technology, and design thinking. Her research shows that the most creative people engage in multiple different activities and disciplines—for example, a scientist who performs jazz piano. Today’s conversation ranges widely over a broad range of topics related to technology, education, and creativity.

Chapters:

(0:00) Welcome

(1:00) Dr. Danah Henriksen Introduction

(2:29) Interview

(10:46) Online teaching at ASU

(12:20) Exceptional teachers

(18:58) Transdisciplinary thinking

(20:23) Wide range of interests

(24:30) Habits of mind

(32:56) Design thinking

(39:30) Teachers as designers

(45:40) Experience design

(50:36) Remote learning

(57:33) Technology and creativity

(1:00:50) Advice for next week

For more information:

www.danah-henriksen.com

Music by license from SoundStripe:

• "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Today’s guest is Dr. Tony Wagner, a globally recognized expert in education, creativity, and learning. Dr. Wagner was at Harvard for over 20 years and he’s published seven books about education. In today’s episode, Dr. Wagner provides profound insights into the U.S. educational system today. This is a wide-ranging conversation about teaching and about what schools can do differently to foster deep learning and creativity in students.

Dr. Wagner is a Senior Research Fellow at the Learning Policy Institute. While at Harvard, he was an Expert in Residence at the Harvard Innovation Lab and the founder and co-director, for more than a decade, of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Before that, he spent 12 years as a high school teacher and an elementary school principal. He’s written seven books and countless articles about his research. Dr. Wagner is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences.

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Chapters

(0:00) Welcome

(1:32) Dr. Tony Wagner Introduction

(3:14) Reimagining Education

(8:48) A Ribbon for Axemanship

(14:11) Less is More

(19:16) Learning How to Think

(26:08) Intrinsic Motivation

(35:20) Harvard’s Change Leadership Lab

(41:54) Harvard’s Innovation Lab

(46:20) Curiosity

(54:29) Learning to See

(1:00:15) Advice for the Listener

(1:02:22) Closer

For further information:

Dr. Wagner’s web site: www.tonywagner.com

Books mentioned in this episode:

Keith Sawyer, 2019, The Creative Classroom: Innovative Teaching for 21st-Century Learners

By Tony Wagner:

2020, Learning By Heart: An Unconventional Education

2012, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World

2008, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need—and What We Can Do About It.

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

How do you teach students how to be creative? In this episode, you'll learn what research has to say about teaching for creativity. The surprising message is that we need to completely change the way we think about teaching and learning. We need to teach creative knowledge instead of shallow knowledge. We need to move from instructionist methods to a new pedagogy called guided improvisation. This episode is for every teacher, not just the art teachers, because in today's world, students need to be prepared to be creative in everything they do. After all, people are creative in specific subjects and disciplines and art forms. How can we change the way we teach in every subject, so that students learn the kind of knowledge that prepares them to be creative in that subject? This episode shows you how to create a Creative Classroom. 

Chapters

(0:00) The Need for Creativity

(1:00) Two Questions

(2:49) Instructionism

(9:18) Creative Knowledge

(13:41) Bloom’s Pyramid

(18:08) Domain Specificity

(21:08) Guided Improvisation

(25:40) Open-Ended Problems

(38:51) The Take-Home Message

(43:19) Fostering Creativity

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

For more information:

The Creative Classroom by Keith Sawyer. Published in 2019 by Teachers College Press.

Music by license from Soundstripe:

• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "At The Get Down" by Matt Wigton
• "Uptown Lovers" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Toy Story is one of the best loved movies of all time. Released in 1995, it was the first fully digitally animated feature film. The Toy Story creation story is filled with surprising twists and turns. This episode reveals the secrets behind the movie, the paths not taken, the characters and events that never made it into the final movie. The initial script treatment was almost nothing like the movie we know and love. This episode tells you the backstory of Toy Story. None of your favorite characters was in the original script! When we look at how Toy Story was created, from start to finish, we see the essence of creativity. We see an improvisational, exploratory process. This episode shows you how you can use these lessons to enhance your own personal creativity.

Chapters:

(0:00) Welcome

(00:25) Introduction

(00:50) Pixar’s Challenge

(3:54) The Plot

(9:10) The Surprises

(18:18) The Improvisational Path

(28:08) The Lessons

(29:25) Outro

References:

David Price, The Pixar Touch

Keith Sawyer, “The Zig Zag Path to Toy Story”

Music by license from Soundstripe.com:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

I do not hold the copyright to the Toy Story movie audio excerpts in this episode nor the episode cover art. The rights to the cover art and the audio clips remain with the original rightsholders. They are reproduced here under fair use.

Monopoly is the bestselling boardgame of all time. In this episode you’ll learn how Monopoly was invented. Until the truth came out, in the 1970s, we used to believe that a man named Charles Darrow created the game in 1934 in a burst of genius. But some dedicated sleuths discovered the real invention story. It’s a fascinating story about the power of collaboration and social networks. You’ll hear about the battle against Capitalism, the Supreme Court, Quakers, a political campaign—this story has it all! Monopoly emerged over a 30-year period, with creative contributions by hundreds of people. Each person contributed a small spark of creativity along the way. The story of Monopoly demonstrates the power of collaboration to drive creativity.

(0:00) The Myth

(00:26) Introduction

(00:51) The Success

(1:57) Anti-Monopoly

(4:49) Charles Darrow

(9:01) The Single Tax

(10:23) The Quakers

(13:39) Professors and Fraternities

(15:06) Atlantic City

(18:10) The Supreme Court

(20:02) The Collaborative Web

(23:55) Closer

(24:22) Outro

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

SOURCES:

• Keith Sawyer, Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration
• Ralph Anspach, The Billion Dollar Monopoly Swindle
• Philip Orbanes, Monopoly: The World’s Most Famous Game and How It Got that Way
• Mary Pilon, “How a fight over a boardgame monopolized an economist’s life." Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2009
• Gavin Edwards, "Overlooked no more: Lizzie Magie, the unknown inventor behind Monopoly." New York Times
• Tim Walsh, Timeless toys: Classic toys and the playmakers who created them

Music by license from Soundstripe (in order of appearance):

• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Uptown Lovers" by AFTERNOONZ
• "At The Get Down" by Matt Wigton
• "What's The Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich