Dreamwork

Dreamwork is a book about the ideas, dreams, dreads, and ideals we have regarding work. Its central argument is that, although we depend on the idea of work for our identity as humans, we feel we must disguise from ourselves the fact that we do not know what work is.

There is no example of work that nobody might under some circumstances do for fun. All work is imaginary - which is not to say that it is simply illusory, but rather that, in order to count as work, it must be imagined to be work; so that a large part of what we mean by working is this work of imagining. Work is therefore essentially mystical - just the opposite of what it is taken to be.

Dreamwork looks in turn at worries about whether or not work is hard; the importance of places of work; the meanings of hobbies, holidays, and sabbaths; and the history of dreams of redeeming work.

‘With his inimitable flair for rooting out the phenomenological intricacies of apparently ordinary things, Connor leads us on a tour of the dream factory of work, labor, toil, and occupation. The result is a book of typically considerable - dare I say it - detective work that opens up the quotidian reality and enabling dreamscape of work to new understanding.’ - Nathan Waddell, associate professor in twentieth-century literature, University of Birmingham