Lorelei's Doomed Performance: Anita Loos and the American Dream

Prospects ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 547-568 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Silverman
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
American Dream ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
The Public ◽  
Nineteenth Amendment ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Horatio Alger ◽  
Anita Loos

When Anita Loos wrote her best-selling novels, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1928), American women were in a state of flux. Buoyed by the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, many middle-class and upper-class women expected to play a larger role in public life. Nonetheless, men expected women to undertake the same roles of wife and mother as women of previous generations — a demand that put many women and men in conflict. While suffrage had not eliminated the myths and beliefs that bound women earlier in the century, women believed they had tools similar to those implicitly endorsed by Horatio Alger, such as education and determination, to enable them to move into the public sphere.

scholarly journals The Public Sphere in the Field of Power

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-335 ◽  
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.

scholarly journals I Don't Want to Be a Citizen (if it Means I Have to Watch the ABC)

2002 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan McKee
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Social Organisation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper argues that much writing about media and citizenship tends to rely on a set of realist or structuralist assumptions about what constitutes a state, a citizen and politics. Because of these assumptions, other forms of social organisation that could reasonably be described as nations, and other forms of social engagement that could be called citizenship are excluded from consideration. One effect of this blindness is that certain identities, and the cultural formations associated with them, continue to be overvalued as more real and important than others. Areas of culture that are traditionally while, masculine, middle-class and heterosexual remain central in debates, while the political processes of citizens of, for example, a Queer nation, continue to be either ignored or devalued as being somehow trivial, unimportant or less real. The paper demonstrates that this need not be the case — that the language of nation and citizenship can reasonably be expanded to include these other forms of social organisation, and that when such a conceptual move is made, we can find ways of describing contemporary culture that attempt to understand the public-sphere functions of the media without falling back into traditional prejudices against feminised, Queer, working class or non-white forms of culture.

Pages from a Yellow Press: Print Culture, Public Life and Political Genealogies in Modern Brazil

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-379
Author(s):  
JAMES P. WOODARD
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Original Formulation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Radical Republicanism

AbstractAn examination of the Brazilian newspaper O Combate, this article accomplishes four goals. First, it defines the politics of a periodical long cited but little understood by historians. Second, it documents O Combate's place, alongside other ‘yellow press’ outlets, in the making of a ‘public sphere’ in São Paulo. Third, it situates the same publications' role in the bringing into being of a more commercial, publicity-driven press, which would shed the yellow press's radicalism and abet the collapse of the public sphere of its heyday. Fourth, it suggests that O Combate's radical republicanism was one fount of the democratic radicalism of the late 1920s and early 1930s, as well as of the regionally chauvinist constitutionalism of 1932–7. In this rare application of the ‘public sphere’ idea to twentieth-century Brazil, readers may also detect an account closer to Jürgen Habermas’ original formulation than that found in the historiography of nineteenth-century Spanish America.

Media Events, solidarity, and the rise and fall of the public sphere

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C Goldfarb
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Complex Society ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Events ◽  
Primary Object ◽  
The Public Sphere

Dayan and Katz’s classic, Media Events, has continued relevance even as its primary object of inquiry, ceremonial television, is no longer as significant as it once was. The book demonstrates how a key insight of Gabriel Tarde, concerning the importance of media in modern societies, resolves a dilemma of Emile Durkheim’s sociology, the continued importance of common beliefs and rituals in complex society when the members of society have more differences than commonalities. This insight is then applied to a deeper understanding of how ‘media events’ resolved a weakness in Habermas’ account of the transformation public sphere, the cogency of an understanding of a central public sphere when there are in fact multiple publics. The article concludes with reflections on the clear and present crises of public life today when multiple publics do not meet.

scholarly journals Public Broadcasting and Public Sphere

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
AG. Eka Wenats Wuryanta
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Shared Vision ◽  
Public Broadcasting ◽  
Broadcast Media ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Rights ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Cultural Functions

Public broadcasting can relatively accommodate a public sphere that has autonomy and independence. It also facilitates ongoing cultural activities in various aspects of functional life. Public broadcasting as a public sphere is expected to become a new format of public life that can accommodate a variety of public interests into a shared vision in the administration of public life in an honorable and democratic manner. In the context of contemporary reforms, there should be opportunities to develop new formats for the existence of government broadcasting media (RRI / TVRI) to become autonomous and independent institutions that carry out cultural functions in the public sphere (read: public broadcast media). Within the framework of achieving public space based on fulfilling public rights in accessing, receiving, and providing information openly and responsibly.

scholarly journals Religia w przestrzeni życia publicznego w regionach Europy Środkowej

Politeja ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 14 (1(46)) ◽  
pp. 103-139
Author(s):  
Emilia Moddelmog-Anweiler
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Traditional Religion ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The One ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Religion In Public Life

Religion in the public life in the regions of Central Europe. Features of the Central European model For post‑communist states, which experienced programmative secularization of society, and are currently building civil society, the Western models of determining the place and role of religion in public sphere seem to be inadequate and simplistic. On the one hand, freedom of religion in this region symbolizes success of a new democratic order. On the other, the rapid pace of social, cultural and political changes causes dilemmas regarding the place of religion in public life, where religion is part of cultural, national and social identities. People are stretched between the freedom to be religious publicly, return to traditional religion and freedom of other choices. It therefore seems that, despite religious diversity and the presence of specific historical circumstances in individual countries, these societies share the perspective of determining the place of religion in the public sphere today, which is the basis of the specific features of religion in public life. The article presents an ovierview of observations and interpretations of characteristics of social practice to the presence of religion in the public sphere, which were distinquished on the basis of qualitative research conducted in Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine.

scholarly journals Post-Sekulerisme Islam Populis di Indonesia

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
M Mujibuddin ◽  
Rina Zuliana
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Qualitative Description ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Public ◽  
Islamic Movement ◽  
Library Research ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Aspects

<p>This article explores the phenomenology of post-secularism in Indonesia. Populist Islamic movement strike for islamization public sphere as a sign of post-secularism in Indonesia. The islamization proceeded both in government dan the public sphere. These phenomena show that the community of urban Muslims can’t leave religious aspects in the public sphere. This research uses the qualitative-description method and library research models. The first result of this research shows that Islamic populism is coming from the urban Muslim middle class who have access to the modern world. Second, the populist Islamic movement who did islamization of the public sphere shows the strengthening of religion's role in the public sphere.</p><p> </p><p> </p>

scholarly journals Działalność publiczna Tadeusza Staniewskiego w Swarzędzu do roku 1918

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 43-61
Author(s):  
Barbara Ksit
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Present Article ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
City Council ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Social Activist ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

mieście Swarzędz. Funkcję tę pełnił społecznie przez dziewięć miesięcy. Ponownie wybrany burmistrzem w 1929 r., pełnił tę funkcję do 1939 r. Dotychczasowe opracowania omawiają działalność Tadeusza Staniewskiego w Swarzędzu, począwszy od listopada 1918 r. Niniejszy artykuł ma być próbą poszerzenia wiadomości na jego temat we wcześniejszym okresie. Syn nauczyciela, ukończył Gimnazjum Fryderyka Wilhelma w Poznaniu. Na początku XX w. osiadł w Swarzędzu, gdzie zyskał uznanie jako kupiec i społecznik. W odniesieniu do lat 1900–1918, kiedy Tadeusz Staniewski stawiał pierwsze kroki w działalności publicznej, najlepszym źródłem jest prasa wielkopolska, zwłaszcza „Postęp” i „Orędownik” – czasopisma reprezentujące interesy drobnomieszczaństwa. Działalność Tadeusza Staniewskiego była omawiana na ich łamach szczególnie w kontekście dwóch wydarzeń istotnych dla Polaków w Swarzędzu – wyborów do Rady Miejskiej w 1909 r. i sprawy budowy Domu Katolickiego. Public activity of Tadeusz Staniewski in Swarzędz until the year 1918 In 1919, Tadeusz Staniewski was the first Pole to become mayor of Swarzędz, a town just outside of Poznań. He held this position for 9 months with no remuneration. He was re-elected in 1929 and remained the mayor of Swarzędz until 1939. Previous articles on the activity of Tadeusz Staniewski in Swarzędz discuss his life from November 1918. The present article aims at expanding this timespan and includes information about him in earlier periods. Son of a teacher, he graduated from Frederick William College in Poznań. In the early 20th century he settled down in Swarzędz, where he gained recognition as a tradesman and social activist. Regarding the years 1900–1918, when Tadeusz Staniewski entered the public sphere, the best sources are press articles published in Greater Poland journals, especially “Postęp” and “Orędownik” which represented the interests of the lower middle class. The activity of Tadeusz Staniewski was discussed there particularly with regard to two events of major importance for Poles in Swarzędz: the 1909 City Council elections and the construction of the Catholic House.

New Technologies, New Work

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Skinner
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Technological Innovation ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Job Market ◽  
The Public ◽  
Vital Component ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
And Gender

This chapter argues that towards the end of the nineteenth century in Spanish America the acceleration of technological innovation and the development of a middle class created new opportunities for middle-class women to enter the labor market. Although women increasingly worked outside the home, writers typically sent the message that women’s work is not valuable or important, that women should avoid work, especially paid work, as much as possible, and that men should help them stay out of the labor force and the capitalist job market. This chapter reads these statements as contesting certain discourses of modernity from the metropolis that privileged women’s entry into the public sphere via paid employment as a vital component of the modernizing project and as taking advantage of modernity’s newfound emphasis on domesticity. Technologies of transportation (trains) and communication (telephones) in Matto de Turner’s Aves sin nido, Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera’s La novela del tranvía, the Chilean journals Zig-Zagand Familia, and the Guatemalan La Ilustración Guatemalteca. Depictions of work, consumer culture, and gender in Gorriti’s La oasis en la vida, César Duáyen’s Mecha Iturbe and Federico Gamboa’s Santa are also analysed.

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