Weimar Bodies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ute Planert
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Human Reproduction ◽  
Gainful Employment ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Gendered Bodies ◽  
The Public Sphere

Like the arts and politics, sexuality, bodies, and the gender order in the Weimar Republic were sites of experimentation in and with modernity. The First World War and the revolution had accelerated the breakthrough of women into arenas such as politics, the public sphere, and professional gainful employment. Big cities provided space for sexual libertinage, in which the transgression of heterosexual norms was possible. A rationalization of sexuality took place, which combined increased freedoms and liberties with attempts at regulation. Sports became an important transmission belt for ideas of discipline, efficiency, and self-optimization. The Weimar welfare state combined the entitlement to live a healthy life with the duty to actively retain the health of one’s body. The latter included considering future generations via eugenicist ideas. A far-reaching consensus on the value of eugenics emerged, yet only under the pressure of the world economic crisis did it materialize in concrete proposals to recalibrate social policy. The final years of the Weimar Republic were marked by a remasculinization of the public sphere and a partial return to more traditional views on gender roles. Overall, gender and gendered bodies, sexuality and human reproduction, were inherent elements of the political conflicts that shaped modern society. At the end of the Weimar Republic, they were more contested than ever.

scholarly journals From Scientific Communism to Political Science: The Development of the Profession in Selected Former Soviet European States

2021 ◽  
pp. 51-85
Author(s):  
Tatsiana Chulitskaya ◽  
Irmina Matonyte ◽  
Dangis Gudelis ◽  
Serghei Sprincean
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Important Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
The Public Sphere

AbstractThe chapter explores the trajectories of the evolution of political science (PS) in four former Soviet Socialist Republics (Estonia and Lithuania, the Republics of Moldova and Belarus) after the USSR collapse. Departing from the premise that PS is appreciated as the science of democracy, the authors claim that its identity and autonomy are particularly important. Research shows that PS in these countries started from the same impoverished basis (“scientific communism”), but it soon took diverse trajectories and currently faces specific challenges. Democracy, pro-Western geopolitical settings and the shorter period of Sovietization contributed to the faster and more sustainable development of PS in two Baltic States. However, in Estonia, political developments have led to the retrenchment of PS and to downsize of universities’ departments and study programmes. In Lithuania, political scientists are very visible in the public sphere. In Moldova, its uncertain geopolitical orientation and a series of internal political conflicts have led to the weak identity of PS and questionable prospects for its further institutionalization. In authoritarian Belarus, PS as an academic discipline exists within a hostile political environment and under a hierarchical system of governance offering practically no degree of academic freedom.

scholarly journals Suppresion of women in modern society – socio-economic aspects

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dragana Vilić
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Economic Aspects ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Along with creating the conditions for progress and emancipation of womenin society, they developed the instruments and methods of preventing theexercise of these conditions. Although it is evident legally equating womenwith men in all spheres of life in modern society there are various forms ofself-suppression of women (psychological, economic, cultural, acceptance ofwomen “without rebellion” of values and rules that are set by men and thelike.). Th e increasing presence of women in the public sphere, their subjugation,discrimination and subordination are moved from private to publicsphere - (in) ability to access public services, employment, wage levels andthe like. Th e causes of this suppression are, usually, in the character of socialrelations - are still rooted in the patriarchal patterns - the imposition of“masculine” principles and rules of everyday life which suppress women fromimportant segments of social relations.

scholarly journals Ār konakhāne / ‘Somewhere Else’: Utopian Resonances in Lila Majumdar’s Autobiographical Writing

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-178
Author(s):  
Barnita Bagchi
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Woman Writer ◽  
Autobiographical Writing ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Children And Young Adults ◽  
The Public Sphere

This article examines the autobiographical writings of Lila Majumdar, 1908–2007, a writer most famous for zany, fantastical, defamiliarizing, speculative fiction for children and young adults. Majumdar was an influential maker of cultural history. While her natal Ray/Raychaudhuri family comprised master entertainers who simultaneously brought reformist, innovative values into the public sphere of the arts, the leading woman writer from this milieu, in her autobiographical and memoir-based volumes Ār konakhāne (‘Somewhere Else’, [1967] 1989), Pākdaṇḍī (‘Winding, Hilly Road’, [1986] 2001), and Kheror khātā (‘Miscellany’ or ‘Scrapbook’, [1982] 2009), imaginatively created utopias. These ‘otherwheres’, to use a word that captures utopian connotations that she creates in her writing, give voice to the marginal and the liminal. We find in her autobiographical writing the dual urge of longing for a utopian elsewhere, and a dissatisfaction with all the places one finds temporary mooring in.

scholarly journals The religious dimension reconstruction of the public sphere in modern theories of sociology of religion

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-16
Author(s):  
Natalia Vashrova
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
The Public ◽  
Religious Dimension ◽  
Contemporary Sociology ◽  
The Public Sphere

The article describes the features of studying interaction between religion and society in contemporary sociology of religion. In particular, author presents theories, studying the transformation of religion, its adaptation to modern conditions, the emergence of new forms of interaction with political and public. Conducted is the review of Ukrainian sociologists’ elaborations in the interpretation of the religion’s role and place in modern society. The author also focuses on the possibilities of applying the approaches of Western sociology of religion for the conceptualization and the study of religious life in Ukraine.

scholarly journals Scenekunstens (for)handlingsrom etter 22. juli

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siemke Böhnisch
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
The Public ◽  
Symbolic Space ◽  
Terror Attacks ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Strongly Connected ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Context Specific

In this article I discuss theatre’s scope of action after the 2011 terror attacks in Norway (“22. July”), with an emphasis on independent theatre, aesthetic heteronomy and the public sphere. A theatre manager’s (Jon Refsdal Moe) retrospect account of and reflections upon a case of self-censoring is the starting point for my (re-)examination of the arguments and dynamics concerning some of the most prominent contentious 22. July performances. I discuss how the controversies can be understood and dealt with, and how they are connected to theatre’s scope of action and place in society today. In my argument, I differentiate between the public sphere as an arena for discussion and debate (which theatre, as an institution, more or less has lost its impact on), and the public, conceived as an imagined community (which theatre still is strongly connected to, as assigned a publics’ symbolic space). I argue that the controversies about the 22. July performances, as well as the usage of marginal spaces, have to be understood as part of a far-reaching cultural dynamics after the terror attacks, concerning not only the arts, but numerous sectors of society, and that the performances aesthetic heteronomy requires a work- and context specific approach.

Conceptualizing E-Participation in the Public Sphere

2011 ◽  
pp. 141-155
Author(s):  
Jenny Backhouse
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
The Internet ◽  
The Public ◽  
Meaningful Participation ◽  
Social Communications ◽  
The Public Sphere

This chapter reviews the current understanding of the role of e-participation in democratic processes, in particular emphasizing the deliberative aspects of participatory democracy and the factors that impinge on successful participation initiatives. It considers what lessons can be learnt, if any, from related aspects of e-government and from e-business, in order to refine the concept of e-participation. The chapter concludes that e-participation has a role to play in a modern society where the Internet is increasingly the medium of choice for social communications. However, e-participation projects need to be appropriately developed so that they truly engage the citizenry and encourage meaningful participation in deliberative facets of democracy.

Boundary Politics in the Public Sphere: Openness, Secrecy, and Leak

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnes S. Ku
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

The issue of openness/secrecy has not received adequate attention in current discussion on the public sphere. Drawing on ideas in critical theory, political sociology, and cultural sociology this article explores the cultural and political dynamics involved in the public sphere in modern society vis-à-vis the practice of open/secret politics by the state. It argues that the media, due to their publicist quality, are situated at the interface between publicity and secrecy, which thereby allows for struggles over the boundary of state openness/secrecy in the public sphere. A theory of boundary politics is introduced that is contextualized in the relationship among state forms, the means of making power visible/invisible (media strategies), and symbolic as well as discursive practices in the public sphere. In explaining the dynamics of boundary politics over openness/secrecy, three ideal-types of boundary creation are conceptualized: open politics secrecy and leak. The theory is illustrated with a case study of the Patten controversy in Hong Kong.

scholarly journals The phenomenon of conflicts around art in the context of the contemporary public sphere

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-280
Author(s):  
Karolina-Dzhoanna Gomes ◽  
◽  
Tatyana A. Kruglova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Value Orientations ◽  
Art World ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
The Public ◽  
Educational Paradigm ◽  
The Public Sphere

The article examines a new type of conflict in the form of public protests against contemporary art that appeared at the end of the 20th — beginning of the 21st century. Typical signs of contemporary conflicts are highlighted: the discourse of the offense is central, the protests are usually organized and collective, accusations are brought against art institutions, and collec-tive affective reactions and symbolic violence often become forms of conflict interaction. In the article, protests against contemporary art are examined through the prism of the analysis of the public as an actor in the conflict, transformations of the public sphere and relations in it as an autonomous field of art (the “art world”) and the fields of influence of other social forces. Relations between the art world and the public go beyond the framework of the educational paradigm, which was dominated by asymmetry and passive influence of consumers on the dynamics of the artistic field. The activization of a part of the public, for which the consumption of contemporary art is not a cultural norm, indicates that the origins of the conflict cannot be explained by the rules of artistic communication that has developed in modern society. Contemporary art spaces are turning into noticeable and important places for the manifestation of social tension and political struggle. Art in the public sphere is becoming the space of vulnerability (J. Butler). It is substantiated that one of the factors in the activation of public conflicts was a change in the structure of the side of the conflict which we call the “public” as opposed to the “audience of art”. In the framework of the concept of the public sphere as an agonistic space (Ch. Mouffe), the need for a review of the value orientations of art institutions and strategies for their interaction with the public is constituted.

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