The Culture of Soft Work

Heather J. Hicks is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of English at Villanova University, USA.

Acknowledgments Introduction: 'Soft is Hard' Chapter One:'No Good To Anybody': Player Piano, General Electric, and the Consumption of Work Chapter Two: Soft Soap, Snow Jobs, and Apartment Keys: Human Relations Management in Mid-Century Literature and Film Chapter Three: Automating Feminism: Self-Actualization vs. the Post-Work Society in Joanna Russ's The Female Man Chapter Four: A Cyborg's Work is Never Done: Programming Robots, Workaholics, and Feminists in Marge Piercy's He, She and It Chapter Five: 'Sleeping Beauty': Corporate Culture, Race, and Reality in Michael Crichton's Rising Sun and Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor Chapter Six:Hoodoo Economics: On Management Gurus and Magical Black Men in Postmodern American Culture Conclusion