Episode 0: What's love got to do with it?

Jocelyn Bell  00:00

Welcome. I'm Dr Jocelyn Bell. I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Bryant University and the instructor for The Human Spark, a class formerly known as the Sociology of Innovation and Creativity, and this is From Ideas to Impact.

Jocelyn Bell  00:26

This is a show where students and professors and professionals explore the overlap of creativity, innovation and love. So creativity and innovation they, they aren't just the purview of artists or engineers. We want to teach people about the work of creators and innovators across industries, especially especially those whose work is driven by a love ethic.

Jocelyn Bell  00:59

How do you change the world in creative ways, no matter what industry you're in?

Jocelyn Bell  01:14

So the students of this class named the podcast and renamed the class itself after we spent a semester, this was Spring 2025, we spent the semester together exploring the matrix of relationships, systems, structures and contexts that make creativity and innovation possible. There are layers upon layers that make the creative act possible. It's not just singular genius. It is very complex process. And because it's a complex process, the sociology of innovation and creativity is a large topic to study.

Jocelyn Bell  01:55

So I was struggling a bit. How do I introduce this class? How do Where do I even start. So I chose to anchor the course in the sociology of love. More specifically, I wanted us as a class to explore the impact of creativity and innovation that is rooted in a love ethic. Now any student or colleague or friend who has talked to me for long enough knows that I've been developing an explanation of what the sociology of love is. I'm still working through it. One of these days, I'm going to get it down, but I feel that bell hooks, who she wasn't a sociologist, but her social theory that she developed over time was just fantastic.

Jocelyn Bell  02:43

And bell hooks definition of love as a verb, and her explanation of a love ethic come very close to what I want this paradigm to capture. According to bell hooks, a love ethic is the use of "all the dimensions of love, care, commitment, trust, responsibility, respect and knowledge in our everyday lives."

Jocelyn Bell  03:10

But because it's so easy, just very easy, to stay in the realm of the abstract for a topic like this, I I wanted students to be able to speak with people who are actually putting love in action as they pursue creativity and innovation. So that's why I invite professionals to come to the human spark class and participate in a student led discussion about the overlap of creativity, innovation and love in various industries.

Jocelyn Bell  03:42

So the episodes of this podcast are either the recordings of those discussions with guest professionals, or maybe not within the class itself, but outside of the class sometimes as well, or they are analyzes that are put together by class affiliates, mainly students, and these analyzes are informed by the discussions with guest professionals. Most of the student created episodes are made to fulfill the final project requirements for the human spark course. So you'll be hearing directly from students about their thoughts and the topics we explored as a class that semester.

Jocelyn Bell  04:21

So in the episode descriptions, you will find a link to the podcast web pages that offer additional resources, like transcripts for the episodes. There'll be rough cuts. There'll be rough transcripts, AI generated sometimes students go through and edit the transcripts so that it isn't so rough, but sometimes they don't. Um, so yeah, transcripts, there's also sometimes photos associated with the episode.

Jocelyn Bell  04:51

So thanks for listening to this quick introduction to the show. I hope you enjoyed joining myself and the students on our journey from ideas to impact.