Changing Perceptions of the Public Sphere

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-85745-500-0
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, 222 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 473 g

Initially propounded by the philosopher Jürgen Habermas in 1962 in order to describe the realm of social discourse between the state on one hand, and the private sphere of the market and the family on the other, the concept of a bourgeois public sphere quickly became a central point of reference in the humanities and social sciences. This volume reassesses the validity and reach of Habermas’s concept beyond political theory by exploring concrete literary and cultural manifestations in early modern and modern Europe. The contributors ask whether, and in what forms, a social formation that rightfully can be called the “public sphere” really existed at particular historical junctures, and consider the senses in which the “public sphere” should rather be replaced by a multitude of interacting cultural and social “publics.” This volume offers insights into the current status of the “public sphere” within the disciplinary formation of the humanities and social sciences at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Emden, Christian J.

Midgley, David

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Gesellschaftstheorie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Changing Perceptions of the Public Sphere

Christian J. Emden and David Midgley

Part I: Publics Before the Public Sphere

Chapter 1. A Public Sphere before Kant? Habermas and the Historians of Early Modern Germany

Joachim Whaley

Chapter 2. Kunigunde of Bavaria and the “Conquest of Regensburg”: Politics, Gender, and the Public Sphere in 1489

Sarah Westphal

Chapter 3. Publishing the Private in Early Modern Europe: The Rise of Secret History

Peter Burke

Part II: Thinking about Enlightenment Publics

Chapter 4. Private, Public, and Structural Change: The German Problem

Nicholas Boyle

Chapter 5. The Second Life of the “Public Sphere”: On Charisma and Routinization in the History of a Concept

John H. Zammito

Part III: Cultural Politics and Literary Publics

Chapter 6. Probing the Limits: The Contribution of Literary Writing to Defining the Public Sphere

David Midgley

Chapter 7. Habermas Anticipated: The Eighteenth-Century Public Sphere as “Theatre of the World” in Edward Lytton Bulwer’s Devereux (1829) and Karl Gutzkow’s Richard Savage (1839)

Martina Lauster

Chapter 8. Karl Kraus and the Transformation of the Public Sphere in Early Twentieth-Century Vienna

Edward Timms

Notes on Contributors

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Emden, Christian J.
Christian J. Emden is Associate Professor of German Intellectual History and Political Thought at Rice University.

Midgley, David
David Midgley is Reader in German Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge, England, and a Fellow of St. John’s College.

Christian J. Emden is Associate Professor of German Intellectual History and Political Thought at Rice University.