Scenes of Creativity

The forgotten origins of the creative economy. A literary study examines the classic Bildungsroman and educational institutions. When and where did what we now call the creative economy begin a social and economic system centred on innovation and self-fulfilment? These are demanded of individuals and considered fulfilling. Until now, its origins have often been traced back to artistic avant-garde movements such as Sturm und Drang or Romanticism and to social niches. This study questions this common view and draws attention to another, hitherto little-noticed area: Bildungsromane and educational institutions from the 18th to 19th centuries. On the one hand, the study focuses on institutions such as kindergartens, schools and universities. These are understood not only as places of knowledge transfer, but also as spaces of knowledge in which young people were deliberately given free time time in which new things could emerge through culturally guided material transformation. The work shows that these free spaces were crucial for the development of the modern idea of the creative, self- optimising individual, but also for modern society. From them, the study derives the research- guiding concepts of the creativity scene and free time. The other, main focus of the work is then on the application of terminology to the Bildungsromane of this period for example, by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Novalis, Joseph von Eichendorff, Adalbert Stifter and Gottfried Keller. Until now, these have been venerated primarily as literary classics or viewed critically as canonised works of a hegemonic culture. However, the study shows that these novels not only helped shape the utopia of the creative human being, but also reflect and question the conditions, possibilities and limits of creative individuality. They thus provide important impulses for contextualising and correcting our current understanding of creativity. The work combines literary studies, cultural history and sociology. Using precise text analysis and a discourse-historical approach, it examines how cultural ideas about creativity and Bildung have developed over the centuries and what role educational institutions and Bildungsromane played in this development. What is new about the study is that it places Bildungsromane in a broader social context, among other things as a catalyst for social, cultural and economic innovation and as a corrective to it. It links the history of these texts with the history of education, institutions and social ideas about creativity. The work thus contributes not only to literary studies, but also to the debate on the role and significance of education and literature in a society that sees itself as creative but often misunderstands creativity.