To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: Metaphorical and Analogical Thinking.
Books on the topic 'Metaphorical and Analogical Thinking'
Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles
Consult the top 28 books for your research on the topic 'Metaphorical and Analogical Thinking.'
Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.
You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.
Browse books on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.
1
L, Pugh Sharon, ed. Bridging: A teacher's guide to metaphorical thinking. National Council of Teachers of English, 1992.
Find full text
2
Max, Kisman, and Oosterhof Frans, eds. Word of image: Metaphorical thinking in Dutch graphic design. 2nd ed. Nijhof & Lee, 2000.
Find full text
3
Gamlin, Peter J. A developmental approach to teaching metaphorical thinking: Implications for promoting the generalization of knowledge. Dept. of Applied Psychology, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 1988.
Find full text
4
Elle, Klaus. Metaphorical Management: Using Intuition and Creativity as a Control Mechanism for Complex Systems. Springer Science+Business Media B.V., 2012.
Find full text
5
Bavaeva, Ol'ga. Metaphorical parallels of the neutral nomination "man" in modern English. INFRA-M Academic Publishing LLC., 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.12737/1858259.
Full textAbstract:
The monograph is devoted to a multidimensional analysis of metaphor in modern English as a parallel nomination that exists along with a neutral equivalent denoting a person. The problem of determining the essence of metaphorical names and their role in the language has attracted the attention of many foreign and domestic linguists on the material of various languages, but until now the fact of the parallel existence of metaphors and neutral nominations has not been emphasized.
 The research is in line with modern problems of linguistics related to the relationship of language, thinking and reflection of the surrounding reality. All these problems are integrated and resolved within the framework of linguistic semantics, in particular in the semantics of metaphor. Multilevel study of language material based on semantic, component, etymological analysis methods contributed to a systematic and comprehensive description of this most important part of the lexical system of the English language.
 Metaphorical parallels are considered as the result of the interaction of three complexes, which allows us to identify their associative-figurative base, as well as the types of metaphorical parallels, depending on the nature of the connection between direct and figurative meaning. Based on the analysis of various human character traits and behavior that evoke associations with animals, birds, objects, zoomorphic, artifact, somatic, floral and anthropomorphic metaphorical parallels of the neutral nomination "man" are distinguished. The social aspect of metaphorical parallels is also investigated as a reflection of gender, status and age characteristics of a person.
 It can be used in the training of philologists and translators when reading theoretical courses on lexicology, stylistics, word formation of the English language, as well as in practical classes, in lexicographic practice.
6
Bianchi, Claudia. Perspectives and Slurs. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198791492.003.0011.
Full textAbstract:
In discussing figurative speech, Lepore and Stone argue that metaphorical interpretation involves a process of perspective taking: metaphor invites us to organize our thinking about something through an analogical correspondence with something it is not. According to them, the same applies to slurs: some words come with an invitation to take a certain perspective, and uses of slurs are associated with ways of thinking about their targets that can harm people. My aim is to critically evaluate such a proposal, within a speech-acts framework. In the recent literature on hate speech, utterances containing slurs are conceived as speech acts in two distinct senses: 1. as perlocutionary acts that cause harm to their targets; 2. as illocutionary acts that constitute harm towards their targets. I will claim that Lepore and Stone’s proposal can be understood both in perlocutionary and illocutionary terms, and argue in favor of an illocutionary approach.
7
Okasha, Samir. Final Thoughts. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198815082.003.0010.
Full textAbstract:
This brings us to the end of the journey. The discussion has ranged quite widely, so it is worth stepping back to re-capitulate the main points and to extract some general morals.Part I focused on a mode of thinking in evolutionary biology that we called ‘agential’. This involves using notions such as interests, goals, and strategies in evolutionary analysis. Agential thinking has a number of manifestations. One is the use of intentional idioms (‘wants, knows’), usually in an extended or metaphorical sense, to describe adaptive behaviour. Another is the analogical transfer of concepts from rational choice theory to evolutionary biology. There are two types of agential thinking, which need to be sharply distinguished. Type 1 treats an evolved entity, paradigmatically an individual organism, as akin to an agent with a goal towards which its phenotypic traits, including its behaviour, conduce. Type 2 treats ‘mother nature’, a personification of natural selection, as akin to a rational agent choosing between alternatives in accordance with a goal, such as maximal fitness. The former is a way of thinking about adaptation (the product), the latter about selection (the process)....
8
Chupin, Jean-Pierre. Analogical Thinking in Architecture. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350343658.
Full textAbstract:
Since the turn of the 21st century, “design thinking” has permeated many fields outside of the design disciplines. It is expected to succeed whenever disciplinary boundaries need to be transcended, and it is imperative when thinking “outside the box.” This book argues that these qualities have long been supported by “analogical thinking”—an agile way of reasoning in which symbolic connections allow designers to address the complexities of the design process. An active field in cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, psychology, and philosophy, “analogical thinking” has yet to be theorized within the built environment. Analogical Thinking in Architecture looks at how this approach offers an agile way to respond to the heterogeneous, and often contradictory, value systems prevalent in architectural design. The book is organized into four case studies: the first reviews analogies in current models of design thinking; the second surveys the revivals of biological analogies from the 19th to the 21st century; the third probes cult architect Aldo Rossi’s theory of the Città Analoga (Analogous City); while the fourth uncovers the role of analogies in critical and theoretical writing. Offering a reappraisal of theories on the role of “analogical thinking” by prominent architects, including Rossi, Peter Eisenman, and Frederick Kiesler; historians Peter Colins and Philip Steadman; and theoreticians Geoffrey Broadbent, Colin Rowe, Peter G. Rowe, Chris Abel and Donald A. Schön; the book provides both a comprehensive introduction to the concept of “analogical thinking” in architecture and the first theorization of analogy specifically within the field of the built environment. This book explores in depth the rich and persistent use of analogical thinking in the built environment. Since the turn of the century, discourses on design thinking have permeated many fields beyond the design disciplines. Design thinking is expected to be helpful whenever disciplinary boundaries need to be transcended, whenever views of a situation to be transformed are conflicting rather than converging, and altogether when it is urgent to think outside the box. The present book argues that these needs have long been supported by analogical thinking: a fundamental capacity to think the unknown through the familiar. As an introduction to the multiple practical and theoretical functions of analogy this book centers on four studies. The first unveils the analogical models at the core of design thinking representations from the 1960s to today. The second study investigates the recurring power of biological analogies in the last two centuries and their culmination at the hinge of digital hypothesis and environmental expectations today. The third study explores the paradoxical imaginary of “analogous cities” as a means of integrating contemporary architecture with heritage contexts. The last study unpacks the critical and theoretical potential of linguistic metaphors and visual comparisons in architectural discourse. These complex visual and textual operations are illustrated by 25 figures and explained through 36 analogical plates. These can be read as an inter-text demonstrating how analogy has the power to reconcile design and theories. So doing, the analogical world of the project is revealed as a wide-open field of creative and cognitive interactions.
9
Hicks, Jean Wolph, Marcia Davis, Tonya Venstra, and Sharon L. Pugh. Bridging: A Teacher's Guide to Metaphorical Thinking. Natl Council of Teachers, 1992.
Find full text
10
Books, Kimbi. Activity Book with Logic Puzzles: Analogical Thinking for Kids. Independently Published, 2020.
Find full text
11
Analogical thinking: Post-Enlightenment understanding in language, collaboration, and interpretation. University of Michigan Press, 2000.
Find full text
12
Schleifer, Ronald. Analogical Thinking: Post-Enlightenment Understanding in Language, Collaboration, and Interpretation. University of Michigan Press, 2001.
Find full text
13
Analogical Thinking in Architecture: Between Design and Theory in the Built Environment. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2023.
Find full text
14
Analogical Thinking in Architecture: Connecting Design and Theory in the Built Environment. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2023.
Find full text
15
English, Lyn D. Mathematical and Analogical Reasoning of Young Learners (Studies in Mathematical Thinking and Learning). Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004.
Find full text
16
English, Lyn D. Mathematical and Analogical Reasoning of Young Learners (Studies in Mathematical Thinking and Learning). Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004.
Find full text
17
Okasha, Samir. Agential Thinking and its Rationale. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198815082.003.0002.
Full textAbstract:
Evolutionary biologists often use the language of intentional psychology in an extended or metaphorical sense. This is a symptom of agential thinking, the practice of invoking concepts such as interests, goals, and strategies in evolutionary analysis. Agential thinking comes in two types. In type 1, the agent with the goal is an evolved entity, typically an individual organism. In type 2, the agent is the evolutionary process itself, often personified as ‘mother nature’. Agential thinking of type 2 is misleading. That of type 1 is a valid expression of adaptationist assumptions, but it relies on a crucial presupposition. It presumes that the organism exhibits a unity-of-purpose, in that all of its evolved traits must contribute to a single overall goal. Where this unity fails to obtain, as for example if there is within-organism conflict, it becomes impossible to treat an organism as akin to a rational agent pursuing a goal.
18
Deep Thoughts Put in Quote: Existing, Truth, Wisdom, Thinking, Love, Failures, Metaphorical, Reminiscence, Heartbreak, Facts, Overthinking, Emotional, Inspirational, and Much More. Independently Published, 2020.
Find full text
19
Moreno, Hugo. Rethinking Philosophy with Borges, Zambrano, Paz, and Plato. The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2022. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781978727175.
Full textAbstract:
In Rethinking Philosophy with Borges, Zambrano, Paz, and Plato, Hugo Moreno argues that in Ficciones, Claros del bosque, and El mono gramático, Jorge Luis Borges, María Zambrano, and Octavio Paz practice a literary way of philosophizing—a way of seeking and communicating knowledge of reality that takes up analogical procedures. They deploy analogy as an indispensable and irreplaceable heuristic tool and literary device to convey their insight and perplexities on the nature of existence. Borges’ ironic approach involves reading and writing philosophy as fiction. Zambrano’s poetic reason is a mode of writing and thinking based on an imaginative sort of recollection that is ultimately a visionary’s poetizing technique. Paz’s poetic thinking relies on analogy to correlate and harmonize an array of worldviews, ideas, and discourses. In the appendix, Moreno shows that Plato's Republic is a forerunner of this way of philosophizing in literature. Moreno suggests that in the Republic, Plato reconciles philosophy and poetry and creates a rational prose poetry that fuses argumentation and narration, dialectical and analogical reasoning, and abstract concepts and poetic images.
20
der Watt, Jan van. Ethics in Community in the Gospel and Letters of John. Edited by Judith M. Lieu and Martinus C. de Boer. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198739982.013.21.
Full textAbstract:
At the beginning of the twenty-first century the question of ethics in John came under renewed consideration. As scholars applied more comprehensive analytical categories to the Gospel and Letters of John significant data became available related to the ethical dynamics of the Gospel. Reading the Gospel as narrative and reflecting on certain socio-historical and theological realities, scholars discovered that the interrelatedness between identity and behaviour is basic to the ethical thinking of John. This identity is expressed in metaphorical terms derived from familial, juridical, friendship, and royal language. The importance of ancient ethically related features, common to ordinary popular moral philosophy, like mimesis or reciprocity, are also highlighted as being part of the ethical dynamics in John. Obviously, the two major foci remain the Law and the love commandment.
21
Slenes, Robert W. Metaphors to Live By in the Diaspora. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190657543.003.0016.
Full textAbstract:
Inspired by research in anthropology and cognitive science that places analogical thinking at the center of human culture and cognition, this chapter focuses on the metaphors by which western Central Africans, particularly speakers of Kikongo, understood—and withstood—the horrors of the Middle Passage and New World enslavement. Canoe metaphors figured prominently in West Central Africa. So too did tropes making ontological connections between things designated by phonetic (near-) homonyms. Both types of analogies helped people explain their lineage origins (locating them in past migrations under duress), find cures for social ills, seal marriages and other alliances, and open liminal paths from suffering to plenitude in this world and in the afterlife. Based primarily on the author’s research in dictionaries of African languages, particularly Kikongo, and on Central African cults of affliction-fruition in Brazil’s 19th-century Southeast, the essay argues that strong shipmate bonding during the Atlantic crossing embodied these homeland metaphors.
22
Owens, Thomas. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and 'the language of the heavens'. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198840862.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
This book explores some of the exultant visions inspired by Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s close scrutiny of the night sky, the natural world, and the domains of science. It examines a set of scientific patterns drawn from natural, geometric, celestial, and astronomical sources which Wordsworth and Coleridge used to express their ideas about poetry, religion, literary criticism, and philosophy. It establishes the central important of analogy in their creative thinking. Analogies prompted the poets’ imaginings in geometry and cartography, in nature (representations of the Moon) and natural history (studies of spider-webs, streams, and dew), in calculus and conical refraction, and in the discovery of infra-red and ultraviolet light. Although this is primarily a study of the patterns which inspired their writing, the findings overturn the prevalent critical consensus that Wordsworth and Coleridge did not have the access, interest, or capacity to understand the latest developments in nineteenth-century astronomy and mathematics, which they did in fact possess. This research reinstates many relationships which the poets had with scientists and their sources. Most significantly, the book illustrates that these sources are not simply another context or historical lens through which to engage with Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s work but are instead a controlling device of the symbolic imagination. Exploring the structures behind Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s poems and metaphysics stakes out a return to the evidence of the Romantic imagination, not for its own sake, but in order to reveal that their analogical configuration of the world provided them with a scaffold for thinking, an intellectual orrery which ordered artistic consciousness and which they never abandoned.
23
Kidd, Erin, and Jakob Karl Rinderknecht, eds. Putting God on the Map. Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2018. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781978720169.
Full textAbstract:
Since the middle of the last century, the emergence and development of fields as diverse as artificial intelligence, evolutionary science, cognitive linguistics, and neuroscience have led to a greater understanding of the ways in which humans think. One of the major discoveries involves what researchers refer to as conceptual mapping. According to theories of conceptual mapping, human thought is profoundly shaped by the ability to make connections. Simply put, human thinking is metaphorical all the way down. This insight has revolutionized the way in which scientists and philosophers think about the mind/body problem, the formation and function of language, and even the development of scientific progress itself. Until recently however, this research has gone largely unnoticed within Christian theology. But this revolution in understanding human cognition calls for broader and richer engagement with theology and religious studies: How does this new insight into human meaning-making bear on our understanding of religious meaning-making? And how might Christian theology interpret and respond to this new understanding of the development of human thought? This edited volume offers an introduction to conceptual mapping that is accessible to those with no previous knowledge of the field, and demonstrates the substantial resources this interdisciplinary research has for thinking about a variety of theological questions. The book begins with a chapter introducing the reader to the basics of conceptual mapping. The remaining chapters apply these insights to a variety of theological topics including anthropology, sacramental theology, biblical studies, ecumenical theology, and ethics.
24
Kennedy, Meegan. Writing Embodiment in Victorian Microscopy. Oxford University PressOxford, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780198940623.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Abstract Victorian microscopists saw observation as deeply embodied, the images emerging through a material entanglement of bodies (of the observer, instrument, apparatus, and object) in a dynamic, unstable system. These ideas echo mid-century work by physiological psychologists, who saw mind (perception, thinking, feeling) as embodied, distributed, and dynamic processes, enacted and affected by automatic or unconscious reflex action, attention, mental training, and fatigue. Microscopists circulated metaphorical and narrative tropes of embodiment through the varied forms of nineteenth-century print culture, to regulate the entanglement of these diverse bodies, and to enculturate microscopy as a difficult but valuable pursuit. They adapted existing concepts (such as beauty, the sublime, natural theology, and fairylands), or invented new ones (such as many-sided comprehension), to promote favored forms of embodiment and build community. Victorians understood wonder and skepticism not as incommensurate approaches to microscopical observation but rather as complementary forms of embodiment. Romantic tropes of wonder (to be distinguished from the intellectual work of imagination) model and solicit particular affective flows. A skeptical, realist approach seeks to train the reader’s eye, hand, body, and judgment, and to formalize the optical, mechanical, and cognitive interchanges of microscopical practice. Some texts offer virtual storyspaces where readers may join the speaker in minute description of an image, in articulated practice, at a soirée, or in exploring an imagined microscopical world. These tropes shape every level of microscopical interest and proficiency, and they illuminate wider patterns of Victorian embodiment, affect, and scientific practice.
25
Somers, Lynn M. Transformative Objects and the Aesthetics of Play. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2024. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350378896.
Full textAbstract:
This book considers the sculpture of Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) in light of psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott’s (1896-1971) radical ideas regarding transitional objects, potential space, and play, offering a model for exploring the complex and psychologically evocative work Bourgeois produced from 1947 to 2000.Critical concepts from British object relational theories – destruction, reparation, integration, relationality and play – drawn from the writings of Winnicott, Melanie Klein, Marion Milner, and Christopher Bollas, among others, bear upon the decades-long study of psychoanalysis Bourgeois brought to her sculptural production that was symbolic, metaphorical, and most importantly, useful. The book demonstrates how Bourgeois’s transformative sculptural objects and environments are invested in object relations, both psychical and tangible, and explores Bourgeois’s contention that the observer physically engage with the intricate sculptural objects and architectural spaces she produced. Each chapter focuses on a key body of work – Femme Maison, Personages, Lairs, Janus, and Cells – examining how these imaginative and playful objects are staged as embodied encounters in space and time to invoke the mutuality, reciprocity, and ambivalence of our object relationships. Weaving a tapestry of aesthetic, cultural, and psychological encounters,Transformative Objects and the Aesthetics of Playaddresses critical relationships among Bourgeois’s work and that of other artists from Pieter Brueghel to Eva Hesse. It brings together practical, archival, and theoretical material, offering close examinations of historically situated objects and analyses of their complex affects and spatiality. Gathering critical perspectives from psychoanalysis, cultural analysis, feminist, queer, literary and affect studies, the book extends its specific art historical scope to investigate the crucial roles that art and cultural experience assume in everyday life. This book considers the sculpture of Louise Bourgeois in light of psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott’s radical ideas regarding transitional objects, potential space, and play, offering a model of exploring the complex and psychologically evocative sculptures Bourgeois produced from 1947 to 2000. Critical concepts from British object relational theories—destruction, reparation, integration, and play—drawn from the work of Melanie Klein, Marion Milner, and others, bear on the decades-long study of psychoanalysis Bourgeois brought to her sculpture that was symbolic, metaphorical, embodied, and most importantly, useful. The book demonstrates how Bourgeois’s transformative sculptural objects and environments are invested in object relations, both psychical and tangible, analyzing her contention that the observer physically engage with the intricate objects and spaces she produced. Each chapter focuses on a key body work—Femme Maison, Personages, Lairs, Janus, and Cells—examining how these imaginative and affective objects are staged in space and time to invoke the mutuality, reciprocity, and ambivalence of our object relationships. Treating artworks as a form of thinking, making, and theorizing across a tapestry of aesthetic, cultural, and psychical concepts of encounter, Transformative Objects and the Aesthetics of Play addresses critical relationships among Bourgeois’s work and that of other artists, from Pieter Brueghel to Eva Hesse. It interweaves archival and theoretical material, close examinations of historically situated objects, and their complex affects and spatiality. Gathering critical perspectives from psychoanalysis, cultural analysis, feminist, queer, literary, and affect studies, the book extends its specific historical scope to investigate the crucial roles that art and cultural experience assume in everyday life.
26
Mundt, Christoph. The Philosophical Roots of Karl Jaspers’. Edited by K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard G. T. Gipps, et al. Oxford University Press, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199579563.013.0007.
Full textAbstract:
This chapter provides an overview of the philosophers who influenced Jaspers when he tackled the conception of General Psychopathology. The introductory remark informs about how the systematic screening of Jaspers' philosophical quotes were gained and evaluated. The first section then deals with the methodological split between the humanities and natural sciences when approaching psychiatric patients. The influence of Dilthey, Weber and other philosophers on Jaspers' emerging position is laid out. The argument of his position that the methodological split is intrinsic to the nature of man is pointed out. The second passage describes Jaspers' polemic critique of Freud and his contrasting high appreciation of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard as those philosophers who were genuine in uncovering unconscious feelings and motives. Furthermore this chapter contains some statements of Jaspers against the establishment of psychoanalysis at Universities. Furthermore his contention is mentioned that the psychotherapeutic relationship is asymmetric and not resting with a hermeneutic process between patient and psychiatrist. The following section mentions Jaspers' critical stance towards and relationship with Heidegger. His judgement on Heidegger's existential philosophy as a closed therefore sterile system is pointed out. The political aspect of their relationship is briefly touched upon. The section on phenomenology reports on Jaspers' critique of Husserl's epoché. Instead of Husserl Hegel and his dialectics gain appreciation in Jaspers' discourse on phenomenology. Jaspers' critical view on the writings of some of the most prominent psychiatrist phenomenologists is discussed. In particular the metaphorical character of phenomenologists' writings is reported with examples. The section on Greek philosophers is briefly mentioned here. They were quoted by Jaspers in a non-systematic use according to reasons of utility. The concluding part deals with Jaspers thoughts about transcendence, i. e. thinking about the "encompassing" beyond existence of the individual person. This part is conceived by Jaspers as out of reach for scientific endeavors.
27
Smith, J. David. Ignored, Shunned, and Invisible. Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 2008. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9798400668302.
Full textAbstract:
Historically, segregation and social isolation have been recurring responses to people considered defective or deficient in some way. And it is in the midst of such a society that special educator J. David Smith wrote this book, which presents critical historical and contemporary issues in mental retardation. Told through gripping vignettes and interwoven with the story of the life of John Lovelace, a man labeled mentally retarded as a child then institutionalized and sterilized, this gripping text will make all readers reconsider not only our social policies and practices, but also our personal actions, in relation to people with mental retardation. Topics covered here include an examination of ways people have been misidentified as having disabilities, then needlessly warehoused in institutions. Coupled with the tragic story of John Lovelace, this book is one that will be long remembered by its readers, and will ideally spur them to action. This book offers new directions for the field of mental retardation, including conceptual and terminology changes regarding intellectual disabilities, and new thinking about the people whose lives have been altered by the term and the concept. Insights from parents, friends, teachers, and varied special education experts are included, as is the strong view of author Smith, who befriended Lovelace. He was often ignored, regularly avoided and treated as less than a person, as invisible, explains Smith. And Lovelace is the metaphorical island to which each chapter here returns, a vivid example of the denial of freedom and dignity to people who bear an intellectually inferior label. In the end, we see how society can promote values that inspire and challenge us to create humane and just treatment for all, or we can just look the other way when facing disturbing human needs.
28
Neal, Judi. Edgewalkers. www.praeger.com, 2006. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9798400643781.
Full textAbstract:
In ancient cultures, each village had a shaman or medicine man who would visit the invisible world to obtain vital information, guidance, and healing for members of the tribe. These edgewalkers have contemporary counterparts in today's organizations—those individuals who don't fit squarely into any one box; in their metaphorical travels they interpret trends from the marketplace, translate messages across departments, and envision the future impact of today's decisions and actions. Edgewalking doesn't come without its own risks and challenges; these unconventional people often clash with more traditional, rule-bound colleagues, and they are often frustrated by organizational systems that emphasize quantitative results over creative impulses. And yet in today's fast-changing, diverse, and globalized business environment, organizations must recruit and support these people in order to stay competitive. Featuring colorful interviews and practical tools to gauge and manage your own edgewalking skills, Edgewalkers explores the opportunities that are created by defying formal boundaries and fostering creativity at every level of the organization. They're the first people to volunteer to head up a new business unit, lead a cross-company initiative, or take on an overseas assignment. They're the glass half-full folks, who are constantly thinking out of the box, forging alliances with colleagues in other departments, seeking out new solutions to old problems, and anticipating challenges on the horizon. And in today's increasingly diverse workplaces, they are often people who have pursued unusual educational and career paths, traveled widely, and speak more than one language. Judi Neal has a term for these people: Edgewalkers. Literally, an edgewalker is someone who walks between two worlds. In ancient cultures, each village had a shaman or medicine man who would visit the invisible world to obtain vital information, guidance, and healing for members of the tribe. Today's corporate edgewalkers serve a similar function, interpreting trends from the marketplace, translating messages across departments, and envisioning the future impact of today's decisions and actions. Edgewalking doesn't come without its own risks and challenges; these unconventional people often clash with more traditional, rule-bound colleagues, and they are often frustrated by organizational systems that emphasize quantitative results over creative impulses. And yet in today's fast-changing, globalized business environment, organizations must recruit and support these people in order to stay competitive. Featuring colorful interviews with edgewalkers from a variety of fields and practical tools to gauge and manage your own edgewalking skills, Edgewalkers explores the opportunities that are created by defying formal boundaries and fostering creativity at every level of the organization.