The Leviathan of Rationality: Using Film to Develop Creativity and Imagination in Management Learning and Education
Damian O’Doherty
Abstract
Dogma is an ever-present danger to reason and rationality. In times of climate emergency and the dawn of a new geological era known as the Anthropocene, dogma becomes particularly disabling and dangerous for business and management. However, recent research findings in the study of creativity and imagination in management learning and education provide some promising ways of responding. Here I draw on techniques in experiential learning and contribute to the call for “disciplined imagination” (Weick, 1989) to explore what can be learned from the study of film for stimulating classroom creativity. The paper is devoted to a close analysis of Leviathan (2012), an experiential and avant-garde contemporary masterpiece in ethnographic filmmaking. I find that existing approaches to creativity need to be supplemented with greater attention to the technological apparatus of cinema and its affective materialities. Drawing on the work of Gilles Deleuze, this essay shows that cinema can produce what we call an event of thought. This requires the generation of original concepts, and we propose “becoming Go-Pro” to best harness the affects and heightened existential awareness stimulated by Leviathan and to help delimit the contours of this event. With this concept, we produce findings that challenge prevailing concepts of reason and rationality in management studies.