Hired hands, liars, schmucks

New-ness, difference and temporal restructuring are now undeniably central to our understanding of how culture is produced in particular industries, and at macro-, meso- and micro-levels of analysis (Havens et al. 2009; Hesmondhalgh and Baker 2011). As well as this, particular production roles and creative and craft professions are historically and temporally embedded, circumscribed and understood via histories of practice and subjective experience. ¹ This chapter illustrates the importance of considering discursive and material histories of cultural work and the ways in which historical, mythologized figures and traits percolate through the lives of contemporary workers.