Ingenuity in the Making
Ingenuity in the Making explores the myriad ways in which ingenuity shaped the experience and conceptualization of materials and their manipulation in early modern Europe. Contributions range widely across the arts and sciences, examining objects and texts, professions and performances, concepts and practices. The book considers subjects such as spirited matter, the conceits of nature, and crafty devices, investigating the ways in which ingenuity acted in and upon the material world through skill and technique. Contributors ask how ingenuity informed the “maker’s knowledge” tradition, where the perilous borderline between the genius of invention and disingenuous fraud was drawn, charting the ambitions of material ingenuity in a rapidly globalizing world.
Don't Knock the Hustle
Offers a timely analysis of the sheer ingenuity and persistence of young people who cobble together the resources they need to pursue the lives and careers they want. Young adults are coming of age at a time when work is temporary, underpaid, incommensurate with their education, or downright unsatisfying. Despite these challenges, media scholar S. Craig Watkins argues that this moment of precarity is rife with opportunities for innovation, and that young adults are leading the charge in turning that into an inventive and surprisingly sustainable future. As a result, society is expanding its understanding of who we think of as innovators and what qualifies as innovation, while wealth is spreading beyond traditional corridors of powerful tech companies, venture capitalism, and well-endowed universities. Drawing on over ten years of interviews and data, Watkins reveals the radical ways in which this community of ambitious young creatives is transforming businesses from the outside in. Diverse perspectives that are often ignored or silenced by major corporations are garnering public attention as women and people of color are redefining industries across the globe—all from their computer screens. We meet people like Prince Harvey, a New York–based hip-hop artist who recorded his album entirely on an Apple showroom laptop; screenwriter, producer, and actor Issa Rae, who first used YouTube and Kickstarter to develop the web series that became her hit HBO show Insecure; the Empowerment Plan, a nonprofit organization created by product design student Veronika Scott in Detroit; and start-up companies like Qeyno Group in San Francisco and Juegos Rancheros in Austin that help make tech more accessible to people of color. Forward-thinking and dynamic, Don’t Knock the Hustle shows the diversity and complexity of a generation on the rise. UNIQUE APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING MILLENNIALS that looks beyond stereotypes about their relationships with tech and labor, based on two years of MacArthur Grant–funded research. DIVERSE AUDIENCE APPEAL that will reach millennials, educators, people seeking to hire millennials, and scholars of technology, media, and labor.
Logodaedalus
Before Romantic genius, there was ingenuity. Early modern ingenuity defined every person—not just exceptional individuals—as having their own attributes and talents, stemming from an “inborn nature” that included many qualities, not just intelligence. Through ingenuity and its family of related terms, early moderns sought to understand and appreciate differences between peoples, places, and things in an attempt to classify their ingenuities and assign professions that were best suited to one’s abilities. Logodaedalus, a prehistory of genius, explores the various ways this language of ingenuity was defined, used, and manipulated between 1470 and 1750. By analyzing printed dictionaries and other lexical works across a range of languages—Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, English, German, and Dutch—the authors reveal the ways in which significant words produced meaning in history and found expression in natural philosophy, medicine, natural history, mathematics, mechanics, poetics, and artistic theory.
Why Not?
A primer for fresh thinking, for problem-solving with a purpose, for bringing the world a few steps closer to the way it should be. Illustrated with examples from every aspect of life, this book offers techniques which help you take the things we all see, every day, and think about them in a new way.
Cracker Ingenuity
Wondering what to do with all those oil drums in your yard? Does a lack of funds inspire you to race lawnmowers instead of cars, or enter cow-chip-tossing contests instead of bridge tournaments? Ever invite friends over for a fancy dinner only to realize that you're flat broke and fresh out of groceries? Look no further... P. T. Elliott and E. M. Lowry's Cracker Ingenuity is the ultimate guide to making something out of nothing - a testament to the universal truth that there's more to life than money. Herein you'll find the recipes, instructions, anecdotes, and advice of the masters who have managed not only to get by on hardly a dime, but to have a great time while doing so - from monster truck rallies to state fairs and from high rise trailer parks to four star "troats" (trailer boats).