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In Limbo, award-winning journalist Alfred Lubrano identifies and describes an overlooked cultural phenomenon: the internal conflict within individuals raised in blue-collar homes, now living white-collar lives. These people often find that the values of the working class are not sufficient guidance to navigate the white-collar world, where unspoken rules reflect primarily upper-class values. Torn between the world they were raised in and the life they aspire too, they hover between worlds, not quite accepted in either. Himself the son of a Brooklyn bricklayer, Lubrano informs his account with personal experience and interviews with other professionals living in limbo. For millions of Americans, these stories will serve as familiar reminders of the struggles of achieving the American Dream.
The story of the early decades of American big business, when white-collar jobs were new and their future uncertain America's white-collar workers form the core of the nation's corporate economy and its expansive middle class. But just a century ago, white-collar jobs were new and their future anything but certain. In Company Men Clark Davis places the corporate office at the heart of American social and cultural history, examining how the nation's first generation of white-collar men created new understandings of masculinity, race, community, and success—all of which would dominate American experience for decades to come. Company Men is set in Los Angeles, the nation's "corporate frontier" of the early twentieth century. Davis shows how this California city—often considered on the fringe of American society for the very reason that it was new and growing so rapidly—displayed in sharp contours how America's corporate culture developed. The young men who left their rural homes for southern California a century ago not only helped build one of the world's great business centers, but also redefined middle-class values and morals. Of interest to students of business history, gender studies, and twentieth-century culture, this work focuses on the "company man" as a pivotal actor in the saga of modern American history.
De-Stalinization and the House of Culture (1990) looks at the houses of culture – arts centres which in the Stalinist period functioned as agencies of political socialisation – and the changes in their character and functions since Stalin’s death. This book explores the diminishing control of the Communist Party over public leisure from 1953 to the present day, as one aspect of the de-Stalinization and the dismantling of the totalitarian system. It focuses on the changing nature and functions of the ‘cultural enlightenment’ conducted in houses of culture and similar institutions. Public rejection of the Stalinist attempt to saturate all leisure activities with propaganda and to liquidate many national cultural traditions have gradually forced the party to relinquish much of its leading role in this area. The book compares this process in three different Soviet-type systems, the USSR, Poland and Hungary. It discusses depoliticization of house of culture activities and, especially in the era of perestroika, their eventual repoliticization by unofficial associations concerned with a mix of political, cultural, social and environmental issues. Today the house of culture, a quintessentially Stalinist institution, paradoxically provides a home for an emergent civil society.
A comprehensive critique showing that training has been a near-total failure. Examines the economic assumptions and track record of training policy, and provides a political analysis of why job training has remained so popular despite widespread evidence of its failure. [book jacket].
"Rohten has demonstrated that traditional anthropological method and theory can be adjusted to the analysis of complex organizations. The book provides a holistic perspective of a Japanese bank and its more than 3,000 employees. Methodologically, Rohlen analyzed this bank in much the same fashion as he would have carried out the study of a small community. Eleven months of participant observation within the bank and among its employees after work provided the major source of data. . . Possibly the most important finding of the study is that despite surface similarities with banks throughout the world, the Japanese have evolved an institution which is radically different. This bank, like many modern Japanese businesses, is organized to secure a common livelihood and way of life for its employees . . . more than the best cultural analysis of a Japanese business, for the book also contributes to the fields of Japanese cultural change and modernization process essential reading."--American Anthropologist "The account is adorned with an unusually rich selection of illustration from the speeches of firm officers, company records and documents, and of course extensive observations from employees . . . As a case study of a single Japanese organization, For Harmony and Strength is a superb effort that penetrates deeper than any other book in the English language."--Contemporary Sociology "A first-rate contribution to the literature in applied anthropology and comparative and cross-cultural management for the insights it provides on management of white-collar employees in Japan."--Industrial and Labor Relations Review "A well-written, thoroughly researched study of the internal life of a single Japanese organization . . Unlike most previous writers, Aohlen deals with the separate recruitment, work, and leisure patterns of the bank's women employees. As an anthropologist he has particular sensitivity to the ritual meanings of bank songs, ceremonies, and extensive training activities . . . one of the best analyses to date of how Japanese organization works."--Library Journal "What emerges from Rohlen's convincing and penetrating analysis is a picture of a thoroughly 'Japanese' business organization deeply imbued with Japanese cultural values .. . . in its sensitivity to cultural meanings and in its analytical coherence in the presentation of data, this book is a model of scholarship matched by few ethnographies. It will be consulted by those specializing in Japan, those interested in organizational behavior, and those interested in seeing 'the meanings of fundamental matters, ' for a long time to come.''--Journal of Asian Studies
Probing the ominous side of career advice to "follow your passion," this data-driven study explains how the passion principle fails us and perpetuates inequality by class, gender, and race; and it suggests how we can reconfigure our relationships to paid work. "Follow your passion" is a popular mantra for career decision-making in the United States. Passion-seeking seems like a promising path for avoiding the potential drudgery of a life of paid work, but this "passion principle"—seductive as it is—does not universally translate. The Trouble with Passion reveals the significant downside of the passion principle: the concept helps culturally legitimize and reproduce an exploited, overworked white-collar labor force and broadly serves to reinforce class, race, and gender segregation and inequality. Grounding her investigation in the paradoxical tensions between capitalism's demand for ideal workers and our cultural expectations for self-expression, sociologist Erin A. Cech draws on interviews that follow students from college into the workforce, surveys of US workers, and experimental data to explain why the passion principle is such an attractive, if deceptive, career decision-making mantra, particularly for the college educated. Passion-seeking presumes middle-class safety nets and springboards and penalizes first-generation and working-class young adults who seek passion without them. The ripple effects of this mantra undermine the promise of college as a tool for social and economic mobility. The passion principle also feeds into a culture of overwork, encouraging white-collar workers to tolerate precarious employment and gladly sacrifice time, money, and leisure for work they are passionate about. And potential employers covet, but won't compensate, passion among job applicants. This book asks, What does it take to center passion in career decisions? Who gets ahead and who gets left behind by passion-seeking? The Trouble with Passion calls for citizens, educators, college administrators, and industry leaders to reconsider how we think about good jobs and, by extension, good lives.
Probing the ominous side of career advice to "follow your passion," this data-driven study explains how the passion principle fails us and perpetuates inequality by class, gender, and race; and it suggests how we can reconfigure our relationships to paid work. "Follow your passion" is a popular mantra for career decision-making in the United States. Passion-seeking seems like a promising path for avoiding the potential drudgery of a life of paid work, but this "passion principle"—seductive as it is—does not universally translate. The Trouble with Passion reveals the significant downside of the passion principle: the concept helps culturally legitimize and reproduce an exploited, overworked white-collar labor force and broadly serves to reinforce class, race, and gender segregation and inequality. Grounding her investigation in the paradoxical tensions between capitalism's demand for ideal workers and our cultural expectations for self-expression, sociologist Erin A. Cech draws on interviews that follow students from college into the workforce, surveys of US workers, and experimental data to explain why the passion principle is such an attractive, if deceptive, career decision-making mantra, particularly for the college educated. Passion-seeking presumes middle-class safety nets and springboards and penalizes first-generation and working-class young adults who seek passion without them. The ripple effects of this mantra undermine the promise of college as a tool for social and economic mobility. The passion principle also feeds into a culture of overwork, encouraging white-collar workers to tolerate precarious employment and gladly sacrifice time, money, and leisure for work they are passionate about. And potential employers covet, but won't compensate, passion among job applicants. This book asks, What does it take to center passion in career decisions? Who gets ahead and who gets left behind by passion-seeking? The Trouble with Passion calls for citizens, educators, college administrators, and industry leaders to reconsider how we think about good jobs and, by extension, good lives.
Now thoroughly updated and revised, this new edition of the highly acclaimed dictionary provides an authoritative and accessible guide to modern ideas in the broad interdisciplinary fields of cultural and critical theory Updated to feature over 40 new entries including pieces on Alain Badiou, Ecocriticism, Comparative Racialization , Ordinary Language Philosophy and Criticism, and Graphic Narrative Includes reflective, broad-ranging articles from leading theorists including Julia Kristeva, Stanley Cavell, and Simon Critchley Features a fully updated bibliography Wide-ranging content makes this an invaluable dictionary for students of a diverse range of disciplines