Secrets of the Creative Brain
A leading neuroscientist who has spent decades studying creativity shares her research on where genius comes from, whether it is dependent on high IQ—and why it is so often accompanied by mental illness.
July/August 2014
In This Issue
Secrets of the creative brain, inside the Lennon-McCartney collaboration, Afghanistan after Karzai, why cartoon mothers are all dead, and more
Features
The Power of Two
Despite the mythology around the idea of the lone genius, the famous partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney demonstrates the brilliance of creative pairs.
The Creative Process
The breakthroughs, borrowings, revisions, and bold decisions behind the work of highly creative people, from Beyoncé to the lead designer of Google Glass
Five Creative Solutions
Scratch-off election ballots, lab-grown meat, and more
Creative Pairs, in Their Own Words
Members of creative pairs on their partners
After Karzai
Afghanistan’s outgoing president helped heal a shattered country. He also winked at corruption and ruled like a tribal chief. His successor will inherit a nation that’s in better shape than you might think—and a government with little power to keep it that way.
Why Are All the Cartoon Mothers Dead?
The dead-mother plot is a classic of children’s fiction, but animated movies have supplied a new twist: the fun father has taken her place.
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Johnny Selman The Great Secession
Faced with sweeping social change, conservative Christians are walling themselves off from secular society. But when religion isolates itself, both sides lose.
Nishant Choksi Punctuated Equilibrium
Will autocorrect save the apostrophe, and slow language’s evolution?
John Cuneo The Most Modern Curator
Why Paola Antonelli put Pac-Man, a mine detonator, and a vial of sweat in the Museum of Modern Art
Matt Chase The End of the Internet?
How regional networks may replace the World Wide Web
Rami Nieimi What Is Art?
Why we like what we like
Álvaro Domínguez How You’ll Get Organized
Four glimpses of a future without information overload
AP Oodles of Noodles
A very short book excerpt
Peter Oumanski A Bar in Britain That Doesn’t Serve Beer
Is a bar still a bar if it doesn’t serve alcohol?
Why Marijuana Should Be Legal, and Expensive
Is there a way to let adults toke while keeping pot out of the hands of high-schoolers?
The Culture File
Kelsey Dake The Twee Revolution
From Wes Anderson to Zooey Deschanel to Brooklynites on bicycles, a terrifying aesthetic is overtaking America.
Ben Wiseman What's in a Name? Everything
Social mobility has never been easy.
Illustration by Jackie Lay. Photos by Bert Reisfeld/Picture-Alliance/dpa/AP; ASSOCIATED PRESS; Mondadori/Getty How Brando Broke the Movies
He reinvented acting, and Hollywood hasn’t recovered.
Hannah Roos A Queer Tour of Israel
Out and about in a nation with identity issues
Twelve Books The Other Helen Keller
An unusual historical novel
Departments
The Conversation
Responses and reverberations
Graham Roumieu The Big Question
Which animal has most changed the course of history?
On the Cover
A note from the magazine’s designer
