/lit/ - Literature

>>15337482
good question. each request is addressed ad hoc and usually requires fishing from different sources. you want to know about the history of electoral campaigns in alabama from 1900-2000? well, i know an academic at stanford, another at uchicago, etc. who can send me rough bibliographies. from there one can root through primary and secondary sources rather quickly to find the most pertinent material--it's sorta a funneling/bottlenecking system that aims at distilling just the "right" amount the client wants/needs.
ask about something to do with medicine, i turn to doctors, etc. it is all about turning to and extrapolating from real sources of expertise. the worst thing i could ever offer is a "faux" or incomplete list; everything is back by major voices in respective fields.
my own expertise covers politics, so i honestly rely on my own acquired knowledge for much of that, though i certainly enlist a lot of feedback from colleagues who teach in the field real-time, as well as some more well-read politicians i know (e.g. washington power poliitcs)
cosma shalizi at carnegie mellon also offers some exceptional reading lists i've collaborated with: http://bactra.org/notebooks/
check out some of my external links for more general lists that are also worthwhile.
but, in general: it depends on the project in question, how much material there is, how much time involved, what the client wants, etc.

>>15337506
send an email, please--i'd be happy to help but i am honestly not going to keep track from this thread.

>Creativity is very important to society, even if limited to consuming the creations of others without creativity many things would be much worse, scientific breakthroughs are reliant on imagination even more than art!
Is it possible that all the great creators of the past discovered some esoteric knowledge about creativity, which allowed them to imagine the things they did?
was it a trait they were born/raised to have? or is it an innate skill to every human, but lost on 99% of people by the time their animal nature is beaten down to become a domesticated adult?(explains how some cultures seem much more creative than others)

I'm interested in the topic - it could be very beneficial if some secret was revealed (it would be funny if there was some conspiracy where the ultimate creative method was kept secret and passed down to only a handful of people so they would always have an easy source of money from their great creations)

what is some literature which discusses this topic? from a scientific/psychological perspective , philosophical , art perspective it doesn't matter.