De-monopolizing the Public Sphere: Politics and Theatre in Nineteenth-Century Germany

This article focuses on an incident of censorship and police intervention at the Königstädtische Theater in Berlin in 1828, occasioned by a performance of Gotthilf August von Maltitz'sThe Old Student(Der alte Student). Identifying how the playwright and his actors sought to represent political topics onstage allows me to explore how theatre functioned as a potential player in an incipient public sphere. In turn this reveals how the desire to represent political topics onstage and to become a performative player in the public sphere was already under way in the 1820s, well before the revolutionary turbulence of 1848.

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The Public Sphere in the Field of Power

Social Science History ◽

10.1017/s0145553200011287 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 34 (3) ◽

pp. 301-335 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Craig Calhoun

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Public Sphere ◽

Public Life ◽

Early Nineteenth Century ◽

Public Spheres ◽

Social Foundations ◽

The Public ◽

The Social ◽

Late Eighteenth ◽

The Public Sphere

In this article I ask (1) whether the ways in which the early bourgeois public sphere was structured—precisely by exclusion—are instructive for considering its later development, (2) how a consideration of the social foundations of public life calls into question abstract formulations of it as an escape from social determination into a realm of discursive reason, (3) to what extent “counterpublics” may offer useful accommodations to failures of larger public spheres without necessarily becoming completely attractive alternatives, and (4) to what extent considering the organization of the public sphere as a field might prove helpful in analyzing differentiated publics, rather than thinking of them simply as parallel but each based on discrete conditions. These considerations are informed by an account of the way that the public sphere developed as a concrete ideal and an object of struggle in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain.

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”Kampagnen med Blæk i stedet for Blod”: Håndskrifter, trykk og opinionskamp i skandinavisk offentlighet, 1801–1814

Sjuttonhundratal ◽

10.7557/4.4158 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 14 ◽

pp. 106-128

Author(s):

Ruth Hemstad

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Public Sphere ◽

Print Culture ◽

The Public ◽

Vital Part ◽

Monitoring Activities ◽

The Public Sphere ◽

Secret War

“The campaign with ink instead of blood”: Manuscripts, print and the war of opinion in the Scandinavian public sphere, 1801–1814Handwritten pamphlets circulated to a high extend as part of the war of opinion which went on in the Norwegian-Swedish borderland around 1814. This ‘campaign with ink instead of blood’, as Danish writers soon characterized this detested activity, was a vital part of the Swedish policy of conquering Norway from Denmark through the means of propaganda. This ‘secret war of opinion’, as it was described in 1803, culminated around 1814, when Sweden accomplished its long-term goal of forming a union with Norway. In this article I am concerned with the role and scope of handwritten letters, actively distributed as pamphlets as part of the Swedish monitoring activities in the borderland, especially in the period 1812 to 1813. These manuscripts were integrated parts of the manifold of publications circulating within a common, although conflict oriented Scandinavian public sphere in the making at this time. The duplication and distribution of handwritten pamphlets, and the interaction with printed material, as Danish counter pamphlets quoting and discussing these manuscripts, illustrates that manuscripts remained important at the beginning of the nineteenth century. They coexisted and interacted with printed material of different kinds, and have to be taken into consideration when studying the public sphere and the print culture in this period.

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Introduction

A Republic in the Ranks ◽

10.5149/northcarolina/9781469654454.003.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-14

Author(s):

Zachery A. Fry

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Public Sphere ◽

Political Culture ◽

Cultural Norms ◽

The Public ◽

The Public Sphere ◽

Union Soldiers

The introduction offers context for the experiences of Union soldiers by examining mid-nineteenth century political culture. During the war itself, officers and men engaged in a spirited and highly publicized debate over the meaning of loyalty. Republicans came to identify true loyalty as obedience to the wartime measures of the Lincoln administration and vigorous engagement in the public sphere, while Democrats proclaimed loyalty to the Constitution and the cultural norms of an anti-partisan military.

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