In this rich examination of how we inherit and transform myths, Hans Blumenberg continues his study of the philosophical roots of the modern world. Work on Myth is in five parts. The first two analyze the characteristics of myth and the stages in the West's work on myth, including long discussions of such authors as Freud, Joyce, Cassirer, and Valéry. The latter three parts present a comprehensive account of the history of the Prometheus myth, from Hesiod and Aeschylus to Gide and Kafka. This section includes a detailed analysis of Goethe's lifelong confrontation with the Prometheus myth, which is a unique synthesis of "psychobiography" and history of ideas. Work on Myth is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.

WORKING HARDER IS FAILING YOU Entrepreneurs are working harder than ever, with almost half working 50 hours a week or more, swapping quality time with our families for long hours in our offices. The problem is, it isn't working. Despite the sacrifices, less than a third of businesses started today will survive long enough to see their 10th birthday. In The Hard Work Myth, you'll discover why working harder is a waste of time and learn the simple but high impact techniques used by some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs to achieve more, without working harder About the author: Barnaby Lashbrooke is on a mission to destroy the myth that working hard is the key to success. Why? Barnaby has built two multi-million dollar businesses, with more than $32 million in total sales, all whilst working less than 35 hours per week and he believes if he can to it, you can too.

This is the first book-length critical analysis in any language of Hans Blumenberg’s theory of myth. Blumenberg can be regarded as the most important German theorist of myth of the second half of the twentieth century, and his Work on Myth (1979) has resonated across disciplines ranging from literary theory, via philosophy, religious studies and anthropology, to the history and philosophy of science. Nicholls introduces Anglophone readers to Blumenberg’s biography and to his philosophical contexts. He elucidates Blumenberg’s theory of myth by relating it to three important developments in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German philosophy (hermeneutics, phenomenology and philosophical anthropology), while also comparing Blumenberg’s ideas with those of other prominent theorists of myth such as Vico, Hume, Schelling, Max Müller, Frazer, Sorel, Freud, Cassirer, Heidegger, Horkheimer and Adorno. According to Nicholls, Blumenberg’s theory of myth can only be understood in relation to the ‘human sciences,’ since it emerges from a speculative hypothesis concerning the emergence of the earliest human beings. For Blumenberg, myth was originally a cultural adaptation that constituted the human attempt to deal with anxieties concerning the threatening forces of nature by anthropomorphizing those forces into mythic images. In the final two chapters, Blumenberg’s theory of myth is placed within the post-war political context of West Germany. Through a consideration of Blumenberg’s exchanges with Carl Schmitt, as well as by analysing unpublished correspondence and parts of the original Work of Myth manuscript that Blumenberg held back from publication, Nicholls shows that Blumenberg’s theory of myth also amounted to a reckoning with the legacy of National Socialism.

An empowering guide that will show you how to shed the myth of the “work-life balance” by merging the seven key components that make up your life to attain harmony and whole-life success “All of us have Seven Slices in our lives: our Family Slice, our Professional Slice, our Personal Slice, our Physical Slice, our Intellectual Slice, our Emotional Slice, and our Spiritual Slice. These all need to be served in some fashion—and in serving them, they, in turn, serve us.” This relatively simple but profoundly critical concept is at the heart of the method executive coach David McNeff has used to transform the lives and careers of his clients. It begins with two important facts: 1) stress happens—you can’t avoid it; and 2) your existence is composed of far more than “work” and “life.” Too often, we divide our lives into those two general categories, but we’re all a lot more complex and our lives are richer than that. By being clear and mindful of all aspects of your life—the Seven Slices—you’ll be more likely to find inner harmony when stress impacts one of them. In The Work-Life Balance Myth, McNeff takes you on a deep dive into each of the Seven Slices, explaining the components of each Slice, signs that you may not be attending to each Slice in a healthy way, and hands-on methods for accessing an underserved Slice. The Work-Life Balance Myth won’t make your life perfect—no one can do that, and you shouldn’t trust anyone who makes that promise. What this book will do is provide you with proven new ways of framing your life, seeing stress for what it is, and vastly improving your ability to navigate the emotional challenges that will inevitably arise in a way that serves your Seven Slices.

When people cannot find good work, can they still find good lives? By investigating this question in the context of South Africa, where only 43 percent of adults are employed, Christine Jeske invites readers to examine their own assumptions about how work and the good life do or do not coincide. The Laziness Myth challenges the widespread premise that hard work determines success by tracing the titular "laziness myth," a persistent narrative that disguises the systems and structures that produce inequalities while blaming unemployment and other social ills on the so-called laziness of particular class, racial, and ethnic groups. Jeske offers evidence of the laziness myth's harsh consequences, as well as insights into how to challenge it with other South African narratives of a good life. In contexts as diverse as rapping in a library, manufacturing leather shoes, weed-whacking neighbors' yards, negotiating marriage plans, and sharing water taps, the people described in this book will stimulate discussion on creative possibilities for seeking the good life in and out of employment, in South Africa and elsewhere.

Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) was a wide-ranging thinker whose ideas affected almost every branch of the social sciences. And nowhere is this impact more evident or more persistent than on the study of myth, ritual, and religion. He articulated as never before or since a program of seeing myths as part of the functional, pragmatic, or performed dimension of culture--that is, as part of activities that did certain tasks for particular human communities. Spanning his entire career, this anthology brings together for the first time the important texts from his work on myth. Ivan Strenski's introduction places Malinowski in his intellectual world and traces his evolving conception of mythology. As Strenski points out, Malinowski was a pioneer in applying the lessons of psychoanalysis to the study of culture, while at the same time he attempted to correct the generalizations of psychoanalysis with the cross-cultural researches of ethnology. With his growing interest in psychoanalysis came a conviction that myths performed essential cultural tasks in "chartering" all sort of human institutions and practices. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The American claim that we should love and be passionate about our job may sound uplifting, or at least, harmless, but Do What You Love exposes the tangible damages such rhetoric has leveled upon contemporary society. Virtue and capital have always been twins in the capitalist, industrialized West. Our ideas of what the “virtues” of pursuing success in capitalism have changed dramatically over time. In the past, we believed that work undertaken with an ethos of industriousness promised financial stability and basic comfort and security for our families. Now, our working life is conflated with the pursuit of pleasure. Fantastically successful—and popular—entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey command us. “You’ve got to love what you do,” Jobs tells an audience of college grads about to enter the workforce, while Winfrey exhorts her audience to “live your best life.” The promises made to today’s workers seem so much larger and nobler than those of previous generations. Why settle for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage and a perfectly functional eight-year-old car when you can get rich becoming your “best” self and have a blast along the way? But workers today are doing more and more for less and less. This reality is frighteningly palpable in eroding paychecks and benefits, the rapid concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny few, and workers’ loss of control over their labor conditions. But where is the protest and anger from workers against a system that tells them to love their work and asks them to do it for less? While winner-take-all capitalism grows ever more ruthless, the rhetoric of passion for labor proliferates. In Do What You Love, Tokumitsu articulates and examines the sacrifices people make for a chance at loveable, self-actualizing, and, of course, wealth-generating work and the conditions facilitated by this pursuit. This book continues the conversation sparked by the author’s earlier Slate article and provides a devastating look at the state of modern America’s labor and workforce.