The Imagination Curriculum (a reading list)

- This is a Substack newsletter post by Zoe Scaman, a brand strategist who writes about creativity, play, and the commercial imagination. - The "Imagination Curriculum" is a curated reading list of books, essays, and papers aimed at defending and rebuilding imaginative thinking — which the author argues is being eroded by digital culture, algorithmic content, and the metrics-obsessed logic of platforms like TikTok and Instagram. - Key references in the piece include: "The Knowledge Illusion" (Sloman & Fernbach), "Stolen Focus" (Johann Hari), "The Chaos Machine" (Max Fisher), and "The Ministry for the Future" (Kim Stanley Robinson) — all works that critique attention economics, epistemic bubbles, or technological determinism. - The post reflects a growing anxiety in tech-literate creative circles about how recommendation algorithms, gamification, and screen saturation shrink the "cognitive slack" needed for original thought.