Lynchburg College Symposium Readings Volume III Shaping Truth: Culture, Expression, and Creativity

About the Book

Every culture develops a conventional repertoire of artistic forms through which the concept of truth is given shape such as narrative, drama, verse, music, and visual arts. Such shapes emerge from the creative processes through which a creator moulds ideas, philosophies, or feelings in order to guide others toward (or to challenge) what one believes to be true. But these shapes also respond to social conventions, collective history, customs, and beliefs. Thus art becomes the articulator of the shared beliefs and values that give shape to the concept of truth. The creator becomes the vessel through which humanity seeks truth in shapes that reflect the cultural values out of which those shapes emerge. Shaping Truth: Culture, Expression, and Creativity presents excerpts of writings on art, artists, the creative process, performance, and museums, from writers ranging from Plato and Sappho, to Shakespeare and Michelangelo, to Cervantes, Li-Po, Cézanne, Shaw, Barthes, Bernstein, and Berger. Readers will find excerpts from works as well as from personal documents that open up new and exciting views on artists, their philosophies, and their search for truth through their work. Shaping Truth: Culture, Expression, and Creativity is the third in the 10-volume series, Lynchburg College Symposium Readings, 3rd edition. Each volume presents primary texts organized around an interdisciplinary, liberal arts theme such as education, politics, social issues, science and technology, morals and ethics. The series has been developed by Lynchburg College faculty for use in the Senior Symposium and the Lynchburg College Symposium Readings Program (SS/LCSR). While these programs are distinctive to Lynchburg College, the texts are used on many college campuses across the nation, as well as by readers interested in significant original texts on important topics.

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