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This sociological simulation uses the ideas of semiotics and symbolic interactionism to demonstrate how an appropriately developed associative memory in the minds of individuals on the microlevel can self-organize into macrolevel dissipative structures of societies such as racial cultural/economic classes, status symbols and fads. The associative memory used is based on an extension of the IAC neural network (the Interactive Activation and Competition network). Several IAC networks act together to form a society by virtue of their human-like properties of intuition and creativity. These properties give them the ability to create and understand signs, which lead to the macrolevel structures of society. This system is implemented in hierarchical object oriented container classes which facilitate change in deep structure. Graphs of general trends and an historical account of a simulation run of this dynamical system are presented.

This paper describes and reflects on a teaching experience developed as a complimentary workshops to MA class on history, theory and politics of consumption. We used Wikipedia as a tool to consider the circuit of knowledge production in the Web 2.0 era, where consumers are no longer passive audiences but producers and consumers at the same time. We developed a collaborative team-work workshop aimed at the production of Wikipedia entries on topics related to the class content. In this note we describe the structure of such "Wikiworshops", our teaching strategy on sources management, teamwork and group teaching, and elaborate on students' reception of the workshop. Wikiworkhops proved to be an effective exercise in a collaborative economy of knowledge, and an opportunity for young sociologists to be part of it, expressing their creativity as well as becoming aware of the boundaries and limits inherent in the mechanism.

It would be difficult to preserve the achievements of the civilization and to discuss the future of humanity beyond the structure of ideological knowledge. The objective vision of reality implies the involvement of ideological dimension into the structure of human thoughts and actions as a precondition for national, state, and cultural identity and for the movement toward the new humanistic social paradigm that would include the traditions of reasonableness, progress, and the capability to "differentiate" between reasonableness and instrumental rationality which, when mixed, make social reflection inadequate to the purposes of social creativity. To what extent are the images of ideology "filled" with social and cognitive tools? What do the images of ideology reflect: reality, knowledge or myth? The authors of this study aim to give answers to these and to other questions.

This note overviews a class activity and an assignment for engaging poetic transcription. Poetic transcription is an arts-based research method commonly employed in the analysis and representation of qualitative data. The discussion provides some background on arts-based research, poetic inquiry, and poetic transcription as research practices within the qualitative tradition. Furthermore, it shows how utilizing poetry in the classroom can help develop empathy and analytical skills as well as facilitate collaboration, creativity, and student engagement. This teaching note includes an examination of the students' impressions using poetic transcription and links poetic transcription to critical pedagogical practices for teaching and learning sociology. I conclude with a discussion that offers considerations for future practitioners.

This paper outlines the methodological framework of a discourse study of the Austrian school system and presents findings on the question of what underlying meanings and ideologies are mediated by practices of self-regulated learning and how this contributes to the reproduction of neoliberal societies. In the first section I will discuss how practices at schools can be analyzed by the methodical framework of the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse and whether practices can be analyzed by discourse study at all. The key assumption is here that although discourse studies cannot examine the subjectification process of the single student, the range of possible options and a presumed "ideal" way of acting can be determined. Referring to concepts of the sociology of knowledge, an understanding of the relationship between discourses and practices will be described and implications for empirical studies will be argued. In the second section of this paper, I will show briefly three main findings of the study: the first one shows how practices of self-regulated learning are positioned as measures to promote more efficiency in the learning process as certain competencies like creativity and self-responsibility are assumed to be acquired more effectively. The second is that self-regulated learning environments promote an understanding of equality of opportunities as performance-related justice and thereby delegate the responsibility to the individual regarding their positions in schools and societies. In the third finding it is argued that the claim for more equality of opportunities actually derives not only from a humanistic perspective but also from demands of a neoliberal speaker position.

Thomas S. Henricks is the J. Earl Danieley Professor of Sociology and Distinguished University Professor at Elon University. Since receiving his doctorate in sociology at the University of Chicago, Henricks has investigated the sociology of sports from the fandom of modern American professional wrestling to the relationship between sports and social stratifi?cation in preindustrial England. Currently his interests include social theory, modernization and change, popular culture, race and ethnic relations, and, especially, the physiological, environmental, social, cultural, and psychological relationships that shape behavior and experience in sports and play. His "Play and the Human Condition" appeared in 2015. His other books include "Disputed Pleasures: Sport and Society in Preindustrial England"; "Play Reconsidered: Sociological Perspectives on Human Pleasure"; and "Selves, Societies, and Emotions: Understanding the Pathways of Experience". Henricks also writes a blog "The Pathways of Experience" for "Psychology Today", focusing on the nature of human play and other main avenues of human expression: work, ritual, and the civic spirit of celebration he calls "communitas". In this interview, Henricks discusses the study of play and notes how play gives both scholars and players a way of understanding human potential individually, in small social circles, and in larger communities.

Though generally accepted as the most playfully entertaining form of popular media or art, animation as play has received little scholarly analysis. The author examines the nature of playfulness in animation and describes play as a critical tool in animation studies. Examining studio character animation from such perspectives as creative production, animated output, and audience reception, he builds on findings of animation studies, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, anthropology, semiotics, sociology, and aesthetics to propose a specific or ludic mode of animation. He then reviews how cinematic naturalism affects the nature of play in animation. He concludes that animation is a playground for the mind and that engagement with animated entertainment is authentic play. (Contains 2 figures.)

This article explores the contributions of Roger Caillois to the study of human play. The initial portion of the essay focuses on Caillois's scholarly career as a response to the public events and intellectual movements of his time. The author shows how Caillois's responses influenced the portraits of play that he developed in such important books as "Man and the Sacred" and "Man, Play, and Games." The article then analyzes the themes Caillois developed in these writings and compares them to Johan Huizinga's interpretation of play in "Homo Ludens." In a final section, the article shows the continued pertinence of Caillois's approach to contemporary scholarship and offers author's own evaluation of this theory.

Znaniecki devoted his creative life to a constant reexamination of the basic problems of sociology: its subject matter and that methodology through which it can be studied. The developments in his thought can be traced with the help of the prefaces to his books, in which he explains the location of that work in his over-all effort to develop a systematic sociology, the major influences on his thought and his arguments with other theories. Starting as a philosopher with a special interest in the evolution of values, he spent years as a result of Thomas's influence attempting to find a psychological base for human behavior, finally abandoning the attempt in favor of systems of social interaction. He focused on four such systems: social relation, social role, social groups, and societies.

Data collected from questionnaires mailed to a systematic sample of full professors were used to test the hypothesis that as persons advance through career stages, they are granted greater latitude in, and have greater inclination for, the expression of creative research activity within a broader perspective. Empirical support was found for this hypothesis. Even stronger support was obtained from a more recent cohort whose members may be part of a more career oriented discipline. Knowledge about the processess of career development and the trend toward increased breadth can lead to continued satisfaction for an individual over his/her career course, and the accomplishment of organizational objectives.

This chapter describes how photography can inspire and cultivate sociological mindfulness. One set of assignments uses self-portraiture to highlight the complexity of visual representations of social identity. Another uses photography to guide sociological inquiry. Both sets of assignments draw on the Literacy Through Photography methodology, using the interplay of image making and writing to foster creativity and insight and strengthen communication and observation skills.

This study examines the dynamics of the first-time teaching experience of graduate instructors, drawing on interview and focus group data from 35 sociology students in a doctoral program at a large university in the United States. Results indicate the majority of graduate instructors felt a great deal of anxiety due to challenges they faced when teaching their own course for the first time: challenges such as feelings of unpreparedness, constant and unremitting time demands, problems with students, a lack of confidence, and insufficient support. Instructors employed a number of informal strategies in attempts to mediate the personal and professional impact of these challenges. Strategies included adjusting expectations, making sacrifices, becoming savvy, and creating informal peer networks that provided social support and increased access to resources. Findings indicate the need for institutional-level changes, including how graduate student teaching is viewed within the discipline and the ways graduate instructors are supported and prepared to teach. This article concludes with specific recommendations for graduate programs and sociology departments of sociology.

Education and assimilation seem intimately connected; education either supports assimilation or thwarts it. But these paradigms assume a model of cultural vitality that depends on what one scholar aptly terms "tenacious adherence," over time, to an unchanging cultural or religious tradition. Taking the example of the Jewish community and Jewish education and drawing on Jewish history and contemporary sociology of the Jews as well as other scholarship, this article presents the argument that this model is untenable. Instead, the goals of Jewish education ought to be reconceptualized, and the aim should instead be for "responsible assimilation," that is, the cultivation of the capacity to creatively and responsibly assimilate external norms and practices in the service of the growth and vitality of Jewish culture. (Contains 20 footnotes.)

Narratives of classroom life--the type that blend analysis with artistry, in the form of plays, poems, stories, and the like--remain relatively uncommon within language education research. Yet such narratives have the potential to make a significant and timely contribution to the field, given the ways in which knowledge is being reconceptualised in this postmodern, transglobal era. Here I make a case that incorporating crafted classroom-life narratives into language education's research repertoire--within a body of work that I propose be called "critical narrative studies"--can help to address the field's changing needs by further democratising knowledge production and exchange, illuminating subtle yet vital dimensions of classroom interactions, and prompting imaginative interpretations and revisionings. My argument draws together relevant strands of applied linguistics research; narrative theories and research from education, sociology, and the arts; and several classroom narratives of mine. I conclude with recommendations for enhancing the rigour and reach of studies that incorporate narratives of classroom life, in light of some important dilemmas and cautions.

This paper examines Vygotsky's conception of play as a leading activity in the contexts of children's contemporary play worlds. Commencing with an examination of the relationship between leading activities and the development of psychological functions, the paper moves into a consideration of the relationship between imagination and reality as a basis for play as a leading activity. The relationship is considered in the context of current discussion regarding the sociology of childhood and the sociology of consumerism to explore the ways in which children's experiences in digital-consumerist contexts possibly shape learning and development. Drawing on the example of the highly popular character Thomas the Tank Engine[TM], the paper examines the implications associated with understanding play as a leading activity within contemporary contexts, and how these might relate to existing perspectives on play, pedagogy and curriculum in early childhood education settings.

This article reports on the incorporation of visual material as a tool for learning sociology and discusses a poster assignment introduced as a means of assessment in an academic context committed to innovative learning strategies and to teaching and learning enhancement. The article draws on an evaluation of using the poster assignment to assess student learning and argues that visual images can provide valid and insightful ways of "telling about society" which challenge the reliance on text as a means of teaching and learning sociology. The article explores the context in which visual materials are used in teaching and learning sociology and their impact on and significance for assessment and learning. (Contains 1 note.)

The article problematizes in aphoristic condensation the heterogeneous concepts of creativity in philosophy, psychology and sociology and outlines their paradoxes. Creativity in these concepts is tied to the human potential to bring into being something new and to the capacity of drawing differences. In its contingency, creativity is ambivalent to a high degree--at one and the same time a desirable resource and a threatening potential. So on the one hand, creativity is meant to be mobilized and set free; on the other hand, it is meant to be controlled and reined in. The imperative of being creative is nowadays connected to the mobilization of the entrepreneurial self. Entrepreneurial action demands permanent innovation--and consequently ceaseless creative exertion. Everybody not only has to be simply creative, but more creative than the others.

The reading and writing of creative writing have the potential to bring sociology to life in a dramatic way. Literature has been used in sociology in one of two ways: to provide sociological evidence and as an object of analysis--a social institution to be studied in its own right. Previous scholarship has proven that the use of literature in sociology enhances students' critical thinking, applies sociology, and develops sociological imagination. The actual writing of literature by students has been shown to benefit their understanding of sociology through the assigning of critical autobiographies, utopian writing, and third-person fiction. This article presents a fiction assignment in which students will write in the first person rather than the third. The authors will discuss the relevance for reinforcing the sociological imagination of having students write fiction about themselves as employees 10 years in the future. The genre of this assignment compels students to internalize sociological ideas to create the text. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

This essay highlights three graduate student papers in an effort to explore the use of a relatively new methodology in the social sciences known as narratives of self. The seminar, in which the student papers were written, was formulated on the tenets of critical pedagogy and cultural studies. This paper positions the use of narratives of self within the frameworks of both fields of inquiry. The story-like qualities of the narratives encourage students to creatively conceptualize links between their own experiences in and around sport with the theoretical positions articulated in the seminar's readings and discussions. The larger aim of such a process is that the complexities of social relations are better understood, both by the writer of the essay and those who read the narrative.

Interprets the historical development of major curriculum theories in terms of their relation to creativity as a goal of organized learning. Also explores the development by discussing the organizing of learning for creativity from the viewpoints of different sociological paradigms. (SLD)

Discusses effects on graduate sociology education of trends emphasizing quantitative methods and the positivist tradition at the expense of social theory and interpretive sociology. Argues that failure to develop sociology's interpretive tradition has allowed the style and intellectual creativity of sociological work to suffer. Urges greater balance between the two traditions of sociology. (DK)

Recent methodological and conceptual changes in sociology of art research are valuable because they provide descriptive material and counter prevalent sociological assumptions. Researchers now see the need for a sociological component in the study of aesthetics and art. An effective sociology of art is of vital concern to art education. (RM)

The long-standing belief that age is negatively associated with scientific productivity and creativity is shown to be based upon incorrect analysis of data. Studies reported in this article suggest that the relationship between age and scientific performance is influenced by the operation of the reward system. (Author)

A number of research disciplines have contributed to an emerging picture of creative individuals, processes, and achievements. Contributions to a science of creativity are reviewed, focusing on the psychometric approach, cognitive approaches, studies of personality and motivation, sociological and historiometric investigations, and neurobiological aspects of unusual human performance. (JDD)

Changes in concepts of creativity and culture necessitate closer attention to the sociological aspects of creativity. Problems emanate from disregarding the modernization process in our culture, as that process relates to creativity, and from the impact of the contemporary fine arts on creativity research and art education practice. (Author/SR)

This article seeks to determine the link between the symbolic profile of North American skyscrapers and the features of North American culture, emphasizing the parallelism followed in the evolution of both. For this purpose, it resorts to a comprehensive or interpretative sociology combined with an incipient sociology of skyscrapers as a theoretical–methodological basis, complemented in turn with the notions of creativity and symbolism, resources through which the nuclear myths on which North American culture is sustained would become visible. The work reveals how the transformations in the style followed by American skyscrapers maintain a close relationship with the process of collapse of the original values proclaimed by American capitalism. So that the aesthetics characterized by a rationalist abstraction, perfectly fitted in the inaugural ascetic values of this first capitalism, would give way to an aesthetics of evanescent sign where an individuated consideration of the self would be given preeminence. In this sense, the work discovers how the symbology carried on the skyscrapers constitutes a first-level observatory in order to evidence the mutations that took place in the North American religiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As happens in the very notion of social creativity that presents itself objectified in different figures over time, in the same way the types of transcendence -as condition of posibility of creativity- change over time. We are going to analyze four socio-historical constellations of the creativity-transcendence binomial: The first of them is the one represented by a myth-ritual structure embodied by Homo Sapiens in primitive cultures; the second of them is the one that arises 500 B.C. ago with the "axial revolution" in China, India, Iran, Palestine and Greece supported by new carriers of creative action; the third of them is configured at the beginning of modernity in the 18th century, with the Protestant Reformation and immediately afterwards with the Enlightenment and Romanticism, supported by new carriers of creative action; the fourth constellation of creativity-transcendence emerges today with the convergence of technologies - nanotechnology, biotechnology, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence - where the sense of human nature as a vector within a hybrid cognitive collectivity made up of humans and things is altered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We suggest that some of the mechanisms underlying network effects on cultural evolution are intuitively accessible to laypeople, and may be part of the suite of social learning strategies underlying the human capacity for cumulative culture. Interest in the psychological mechanisms underlying this capacity typically focuses on learners’ ability to identify reliable sources and capacity for high-fidelity imitation. Yet, at the population level, research suggests that network structures themselves may influence cumulative learning by changing individuals’ explore-exploit patterns. In our experiments, adults infer that more proximal or distal clusters in a fragmented network will have more similar or dissimilar technological “styles”, and prefer to seek advice from more distant experts when asked to innovate, but more proximate experts when asked to remember. Commonsense intuitions about how social networks shape our access to information and diversity- fidelity tradeoffs for memory and innovation may make us more effective social learners.

In the first sociology course I ever took, our first reading was The sociological imagination. Mills’s (2000) writings on the differences between personal troubles and public issues, the influence of historical developments on individual experiences, and his overarching emphasis on thinking sociologically opened my eyes to a new way of seeing, understanding, and acting in the world. The sociological imagination Mills describes encourages us to question common-sense, to wonder why our societies look the way they do, and to imagine different lives, choices, and ideals. However, in his discussion of the sociological imagination, Mills (2000:5) presupposes that we (and our fellow citizens) are inherently curious, suggesting that “what [we] feel [we] need is a quality of mind that will help [us]… to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and what may be happening within [ourselves].” At least for me, this was not necessarily something I felt as an 18-year-old in my second semester of university when I first encountered Mills. Yet, as we read and discussed Mills, Mead, Addams, Weber, Smith, and others, this feeling developed and grew. I became more curious, inspired to continue reading and learning sociology. Sociology helped me develop a better understanding of myself and the world around me at the same time as I found that sociology enabled me to choose amongst broader lines of actions, ideals, and life paths. This text considers the role that sociology can (and should) play in helping us understand our world. I begin with this personal anecdote, on my experience of encountering sociology, because it (unsurprisingly) heavily influences my answer to the question of how I, as a young sociologist, view the role and future of sociology. Here, I will argue that we should understand sociology as a practice characterized by curiosity. I suggest that this could have at least two potential benefits. First, a sociology saturated with curiosity would be an inherently relevant sociology. Although I (and presumably, other readers of this journal) may read sociological texts, discuss sociological theory, and do sociological research on an (almost) daily basis, sociology lacks the cultural resonance of disciplines like economics and psychology in the newspapers, public debates, and broader discourses of our society. The reasons for this are too numerous to consider here, but I argue that one of these reasons is that we seldom present sociology as something anyone can do, or something that can be useful in everyday life. A curious sociology would be a sociology that offers not answers, dry facts, or abstract theories but instead would present sociology as an active practice that enables us to better integrate our experiences and understand the connections between different people, locations, and events. Second, a curious sociology promotes increased democracy, freedom, and autonomy. Here, I make no claims that sociology or curiosity can truly combat structural oppressions, enforced through material, political, and legal power. However, I do suggest that the practice of sociology encourages us to seek new connections, attempt new tasks, and reconsider our values at the same time as it increases our interest in values, norms, and ideals initially foreign to us. Sociology, in this sense, implies experimentation—the trying out of new selves and the creation of new means and ends. My conception of a curious sociology grows out of a particular understanding of the word sociology. Defining sociology is an inherently fraught exercise. Therefore, I wish to emphasize that I make no claim to a universal definition here, but instead merely offer some outlines of my own understanding. Sociology, for me, encompasses a manner of being, understanding, and acting in the world. It is an active, critical practice that involves both “an attempt to understand” (Berger 1963:4) and an acknowledgement that “to understand something is to acquire a way of doing something” (Crossley 2013:149). Sociology entails critically questioning the world around us as well as critically questioning ourselves, our taste and our actions. Sociology, in this sense, is therefore not solely something we do in our roles as researchers or teachers, but instead a habit [see e.g. James (1997)] that we can (and should) adopt in almost all social settings. Curiosity forms a part of this habit. I follow Dewey (1966) in viewing curiosity as the process through which we seek new connections to our experiences. Through curiosity, Dewey (1966:244) suggests that “our ordinary daily experiences cease to be things of the moment and [instead] gain enduring substance.” Like sociology, curiosity in this conception is active. Through this activity, our experiences become more significant, meaningful, and holistic. Like all habits, the practice of sociology must be learned. Thus, when discussing the role of sociology, the obvious place to start is in the classroom. Teaching sociology implies finding new and better ways to incorporate and expand the interests our students arrive with, demonstrating that sociological theories are not merely abstract ideas but instead concrete tools. For example, when teaching on deviance and stigma, I have found it helpful to ask students to observe and consider events they attend like family dinners, parties, or university lectures and create lists of rules or norms that govern these settings. I argue that it is less important to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Goffman, Becker, and their influences and more important how their writings allow us to analyze how power works in these varied settings, through examining who can and cannot stigmatize in these settings or whether different individuals suffer the same consequences for similar behaviors. In immediately making sociological theories concrete, I suggest that (at least some) students become more curious about why the social situations they find themselves in appear as they do and begin to reconsider how their experiences in these seemingly strikingly different places can be connected. Similarly, it can help students to query whether the rules, habits, and norms that regulate these social settings are desirable, and if not, what alternatives may exist or be imagined. The point, then, is not necessarily that students can recite the writings or theories of Durkheim, Collins, or Cohen (to remain with the criminological theme) but rather that they engage in the activity of questioning and wondering. Theories are, after all, merely tools we use to try to understand and explain the world around us. In focusing teaching on promoting the activity of sociology rather than the canon of sociology, I suggest that we may help our students to ask more questions, expand their horizons, and become more curious. Similarly, if we consider sociology as a habit rather than profession, I suggest that we must take seriously Martin’s (2022:39) claim that we often “do not carry out research to clarify issues about which we are unsure” and that we instead at times explore “questions…whose answers are so obvious that they are hardly worth asking.” One does not have to agree with Martin’s polemic stance on the current state of sociology to agree that research projects should start from a place of true doubt and curiosity. I suggest that one manner of ensuring that our research explores questions of both relevance and doubt would be to take the tenets of Dorothy Smith much more seriously than we often do. Departing from the experiences, problems, and questions of everyday life not only ensures that research remains rooted in concrete realities of actual subjects, but also enables us to pursue projects and questions that overlap between different spheres or fields of sociological research. Just as Mills famously argues that we should reject methodological fetishism, we should also reject theoretical or subfield fetishism. If we instead view sociology as a holistic activity, we can not only better connect the many varied and brilliant works of sociology that already exist, but also promote increased cooperation amongst different researchers, schools of thought, and even disciplines. Sociology, understood as an activity rather than a field, could play a vital role in understanding, changing, and improving our societies. The problems which we tend to examine in sociological research—poverty, sexism, racism, climate change, etc.—are not problems that individuals will solve. These are problems that can only be solved collectively. We require new solutions and will need to experiment with new forms of social organization. The activity of sociology is vital for imagining these new social arrangements as well as in helping us see if they solve our current problems and what new problems they might create. Promoting sociology as a curious activity means finding new ways to reach out to broader audiences at the same time as it means encouraging more individuals to engage in the activity of sociology, questioning and experimenting with the social orders they desire. In this sense, I end where I started, in agreement with Mills that the habit of sociology remains an invaluable aid not only in understanding our social world, but in changing it. Colm Flaherty Postdoc at the Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University Universitetsvej 1, 14.1, DK-4000, Roskilde colmf@ruc.dk

ObjectivesTo test effects of the Community of Voices choir intervention on the health, well-being, and health care costs of racial/ethnically diverse older adults.MethodTwelve Administration-on-Aging-supported senior centers were cluster randomized into two groups: the intervention group started the choir immediately and a wait-list control group began the choir 6 months later. The choir program was designed for community-dwelling adults aged 60 years and older. The multimodal intervention comprises activities that engage participants cognitively, physically, and socially. Outcome measures assessed these three domains as well as health care utilization and costs. The intention-to-treat comparison was at 6 months.ResultsThe sample (N = 390) had a mean age of 71.3 years (SD = 7.2); 65% were nonwhite. Six-month retention was 92%. Compared to controls, intervention group members experienced significantly greater improvements in loneliness (p = .02; standardized effect size [ES = 0.34] and interest in life (p = .008, ES = 0.39). No significant group differences were observed for cognitive or physical outcomes or for health care costs.DiscussionFindings support adoption of community choirs for reducing loneliness and increasing interest in life among diverse older adults. Further efforts need to examine the mechanisms by which engagement in choirs improves aspects of well-being and reduces health disparities among older adults, including potential longer-term effects.Clinicaltrials.gov registrationNCT01869179 registered January 9, 2013.

Creativity, a distinctive privilege of the fine arts, is the act of shaping a void or absence into an original creation, a harmonious blend of intellect and emotion. It is an intellectual and affective aptitude, wherein ingenuity and intuition converge to birth unprecedented masterpieces. While creativity seems to be incongruent with the logic of the translation process at first glance, often associated solely with literary translation, it, in fact, permeates the very essence of translation, regardless of the text type. Translation is not merely a reproduction but a transformative process, akin to an act of production fueled by creativity. To comprehend the concept of creativity in literary translation, one must explore its relationship with three essential human sciences - sociology, psychology, and philosophy. In the realm of translation, sociology plays a crucial role in understanding the cultural and social dimensions that impact language and communication. A translator's creative choices are inevitably influenced by the context in which they operate. Societal norms, values, and traditions subtly guide the translator's decisions, shaping the outcome of the translated work. Psychology also bears significance, as the translator's mental processes, including cognitive abilities and emotional intelligence, influence their approach to the task. Translators must creatively navigate linguistic challenges, adapting their understanding of both the source and target languages, to convey the intended meaning faithfully while preserving the essence of the original work. Furthermore, philosophy adds depth to the concept of creativity in translation, offering insights into the nature of language, meaning, and interpretation. Philosophical perspectives influence how translators grapple with issues of subjectivity, ambiguity, and the limits of linguistic expression. A translator's creative intuition comes into play when confronting the gaps between languages and cultures, striving to transcend these barriers and give life to a cohesive and captivating translated piece. In conclusion, creativity thrives in the art of translation, extending its reach far beyond literary works. Whether rendering scientific texts, legal documents, or technical manuals, the translator's creativity remains an essential tool in overcoming linguistic challenges and creating nuanced, accurate, and culturally sensitive translations. The interplay between sociology, psychology, and philosophy enriches the understanding of creativity's role in translation, emphasizing its transformative power in bridging cultures and bringing forth captivating, novel expressions of language. As translation continues to evolve, acknowledging and embracing creativity will undoubtedly foster a deeper appreciation for the beauty and intricacies of multilingual communication.

Nine distinguished scholars contributed to the review symposium on Sociology in a New Key, offering critiques, approval, and suggestions for further refinements: James J. Chriss, Alberto Luis Cordeiro de Farias, Jayme Gomes, Victor Lidz, Isaac Arial Reed, Jeremy Tanner, Frédéric Vandenberghe, Raf Vanderstraeten, and Daniel Wehinger. My rejoinder focuses on five issues: (1) Aesthetic experiences and metaphors for sociology; (2) Meaning, the senses, and the body; (3) The aesthetic and culture-theoretical common denominator of Adorno, Parsons, and Simmel; (4) Aesthetics and individuality; and (5) Comparisons and prospects for a sociology in a new key. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New interest in late-life creativity has arisen in gerontology. To date, such research has mainly focused on the positive impact creativity has on older adults, but has scarcely contextualised older adults' creative engagement. Drawing on the sociology of valuation, this article aims to contextualise late-life creativity by critically exploring how creativity gains, stabilises and loses its value and how these processes are related to perceptions, images and discourses addressing old age. Data from 13 interviews with older (60+) adults involved in creative practices in Austria are used to explore these topics. Interviews examined perceptions of creative production, everyday routines and personal attitudes towards ageing. Interviews transcripts were analysed using the documentary method. The analysis revealed three registers of valuation in late-life creativity: economic value, in which valuable creativity was given away at a high revenue; field value, where valuable creativity was appreciated by institutions or other artists in the field; and lifecourse value, in which doing a creative activity for a long time meant being able to produce a creative product that was high in value. This article emphasises late-life creativity as a process of value production that is structured by the making and evaluating of creative products and adds to the current critique that the narrow view of late-life creativity in its associations with wellbeing present a reductionist picture of the capacities that the arts and creativity have for older adults. The results demonstrate the potential for valuation studies in gerontology as they highlight the circumstances and practices by which the activities of older adults are (de)valued. For policy and practice, this article suggests imagining arts-based interventions for older adults beyond the realm of health and wellbeing, and encourages thinking about how valuable artistic experiences can be supported in later life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]