Synopses & Reviews
For many Americans spirituality and business seem to be polar opposites: one is concerned with lofty questions of ultimate significance, the other with mundane matters of the daily grind. Yet over the last two decades the two have become increasingly linked, and as the barriers between them are broken down, many see this as a revolutionary shift in American business culture.
Lake Lambert III provides a comprehensive examination of the workplace spirituality movement, and explores how it is both shaping and being shaped by American business culture. Situating the phenomenon in an historical context, Lambert surveys the role of spirituality in business from medieval guilds to industrial "company towns" right up to current trends in the ever-changing contemporary business environment. Using case studies from specific businesses, such as Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby, he analyzes the enhanced benefits and support that workplace spirituality offers to employees, while exposing the conflicts it engenders, including diversity, religious freedom, and discrimination issues.
The American workplace today is experiencing dramatic upheaval and change. Spirituality, Inc. offers important insights into the role of religion in this transformation. With employees seeking new ways to strike a proper life-work balance and find meaning in their everyday lives, spirituality in the workplace is a trend that will become increasingly important in the American business landscape. Spirituality, Inc. provides a critical overview of this phenomenon that does not ignore the movement's many positive contributions to the workplace, yet does not overlook the potential for abuse.
Review
". . .remarkably illuminating collection of reviews and critical writings on Asian and Asian American art . . ." -Art Journal,
Review
"Why Asia?: Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art explores the fascinating terra incognita offered by both these cultural arenas with admirable objectivity and insight. In this collection of essays, reviews, and interviews, the late Alice Yang investigates not merely the specifics of Chinese, Korean, Thai, or Asian American production, but the complex issues that surround all varieties of identity politics in contemporary art, whether in the United States, Europe, or Asia. Making a clear argument for recognizing the important differences among different groups of Asian artists, she nevertheless sees the broader issues and problems connecting them. Written with verve and intelligence, Why Asia? answers the questions posed by its author with a sophisticated, enlightening, and stimulating analysis of the art, and artists, in question."-Linda Nochlin,Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Review
"Why Asia?: Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art explores the fascinating terra incognita offered by both these cultural arenas with admirable objectivity and insight. In this collection of essays, reviews, and interviews, the late Alice Yang investigates not merely the specifics of Chinese, Korean, Thai, or Asian American production, but the complex issues that surround all varieties of identity politics in contemporary art, whether in the United States, Europe, or Asia. Making a clear argument for recognizing the important differences among different groups of Asian artists, she nevertheless sees the broader issues and problems connecting them. Written with verve and intelligence, Why Asia? answers the questions posed by its author with a sophisticated, enlightening, and stimulating analysis of the art, and artists, in question." - Linda Nochlin, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Review
"Alice Yang wrote with the kind of passionate intelligence that made many artists wish she had written about them. While her ostensible subject is th perilous journey toward recognition and understanding taken by Asian and Asian American artists, the issues she explores go far beyond any of the narrow definitions imposed on these individuals by mainstream culture. Yang understood from a deep place what was at stake; both the present and future of culture. Many of Yang's writings should be regarded as landmark contributions to the turbulent dialogue regarding culture and its constituents."-John Yau,writer, critic, and curator
Review
"This work is useful for audiences ranging from general readers to specialists in American religion, and for its links between religion and economics."-CHOICE,
Review
" more than accomplishes its goal of giving and overview of the spirituality at work movement. It is a serious analysis of a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that will be beneficial for anyone interested in the organizational aspects of business and religion, as well as those interested in the changing forms of religion outside religious institutions."-Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion,
Review
"Lambert does a very good job of summarizing the historical factors which have brought us to this present situation, and also of describing the various ways that spirituality is currently expressed in the workplace."-Len MacRae,Studies in Religion
Review
"Lake Lambert III...offers a thoughtful, engagingly written, and well informed introduction to the recent upsurge in religious expression on the job...will make for rewarding reading for scholars of the post-World War II American business history." -Bethany Moreton,Enterprise and Society
Review
“How we got from Calvinism and the Bible-based idea of vocation to the widespread and vaguely spiritual workplace of today is clearly told by Lambert in Spirituality, Inc.”
-Wall Street Journal,
Synopsis
Why Asia?: Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art is a ground-breaking investigation into two overlapping and rapidly emerging areas in contemporary art. Extricating them from their current confusion under a generic "Asian" label, Yang reveals the specificity of each. The book consists of lucid discussions on individual artists, exhibitions and theoretical issues. With over sixty illustrations it serves to introduce the current landscape of Asian and Asian American Art, with essays on art in China, Taiwan and North America, as well as individual essays on leading artists such as Rirkrit Tiravanija, Xu Bing and Michael Joo. Above all, Yang explores the challenges that contemporary Asian and Asian American art poses to artists, critics, curators and viewers alike. In particular, she reflects on the complexities of exhibition practice, the role of identity politics in arts, the unspoken assumptions of Western critics faced with Asian art, and the difficulties faced by artists working between cultures. This is a major critical contribution in an area where criticism conspicuously lags behind artistic practice.
About the Author
Alice Yang (1961-1997) was Curator at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton and former Assistant Curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. As a critic and curator, she wrote widely on contemporary art, with special attention to Asian and Asian American art.
Jonathan Hay is Associate Professor of Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Co-editor
Mimi Young is a practicing artist in New York and Former Exhibitions and Publications Coordinator at The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.
Mimi Young is a practicing artist in New York and Former Exhibitions and Publications Coordinator at The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.