scholarly journals Religion in the public sphere

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. e41617
Author(s):  
Bernhard Grümme

Religion has become a highly ambivalent phenomenon in late modernity. For some, it is a lasting resource for meaning, even in a highly ideologically plural society. For others, it belongs in the private sphere, not in the public sphere. What both would probably share, however, is the assumption that a state religion would be in contradiction to the promises of freedom and autonomy of modernity. But where is the place of religion in a democratic society? The text discusses this highly complex question in an examination of two theories that have shaped debates in the field like few others. From this discussion, further perspectives for a theologically founded position that is responsible in terms of democratic theory are given in conclusion.

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (1) ◽  
pp. 285-300
Author(s):  
Rudi Visker

The present article plays off two conceptions of the public sphere against one another. The first one sees in it a sign of what is already present in the private sphere, whereas the second regards it as a symbol that has to inscribe its own symbolic force into the private realm. That this is by no means a mere academic question becomes obvious by way of several examples analyzed at great length: the institution of mourning and the discussion about the presence of religious symbols in the public sphere. An argument for considering the Muslim veil as a protection against the divine is put forward in an attempt to clarify the presuppositions of our current predisposal against it. Ultimately, pluralism should perhaps not just be taken to refer only to the presence of others outside of us who we are able to numerically count, but might be the more difficult plight of having to cope with an otherness within each of us. Should the latter be the case, then we are in need of a public sphere where we can leave behind and thus honor what is not only differentiating us from others but also from ourselves.


2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-102
Author(s):  
May Mergenthaler

Abstract This essay explores the concepts and practices of culture and the public sphere that Wieland, Goethe, and Schiller outline and realize in their journals, letters, and other writings. The background of this investigation is the ongoing debate in Germany about the function of a majority culture, based on a national tradition, in a multi-cultural, democratic society. The investigation of the three authors’ concepts and practices of both the public sphere and publishing demonstrates that majority cultures can be conceived in a variety of ways that can be more or less compatible with a liberal society. In their journals, Die Horen and Propyläen, Schiller and Goethe, respectively, are speaking to an ideal public, with the support of a select number of like-minded authors, aiming at the establishment of a national, symbolically structured culture and education (Bildung) that shows affinities to absolutist political structures. By contrast, Wieland opens his Der Teutsche Merkur up to a variety of contributors and readers, which are conceived and accepted as fallible, though teachable, with the goal of furthering the development, over a long period of time, of a national culture that is, at the same time, universal and timeless, thereby questioning the concept of nationhood.


Author(s):  
Valentina Arena

Corruption was seen as a major factor in the collapse of Republican Rome, as Valentina Arena’s subsequent essay “Fighting Corruption: Political Thought and Practice in the Late Roman Republic” argues. It was in reaction to this perception of the Republic’s political fortunes that an array of legislative and institutional measures were established and continually reformed to become more effective. What this chapter shows is that, as in Greece, the public sphere was distinct from the private sphere and, importantly, it was within this distinction that the foundations of anticorruption measures lay. Moreover, it is difficult to defend the existence of a major disjuncture between moralistic discourses and legal-political institutions designed to patrol the public/private divide: both were part of the same discourse and strategy to curb corruption and improve government.


Author(s):  
Lene Rimestad

Columns generally take up a lot of space in the media. But what can an employed journalist write in his column? How is this particular freedom managed and shaped? In this article the columns written by journalists working for Berlingske Tidende are analyzed. The analysis covers two months before and after substantial changes in the paper in 2003. Two parameters are used in the analysis: Political: Is the column pro-government, anti-government, apolitical or mixed. And what sphere does the column cover: Does the column take place in the private sphere or the public sphere? Finally the changes in the period are discussed. But initially the column as a genre is defined.


2018 ◽  
Vol 112 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
HANS ASENBAUM

Although anonymity is a central feature of liberal democracies—not only in the secret ballot, but also in campaign funding, publishing political texts, masked protests, and graffiti—it has so far not been conceptually grounded in democratic theory. Rather, it is treated as a self-explanatory concept related to privacy. To overcome this omission, this article develops a complex understanding of anonymity in the context of democratic theory. Drawing upon the diverse literature on anonymity in political participation, it explains anonymity as a highly context-dependent identity performance expressing private sentiments in the public sphere. The contradictory character of its core elements—identity negation and identity creation—results in three sets of contradictory freedoms. Anonymity affords (a) inclusion and exclusion, (b) subversion and submission, and (c) honesty and deception. This contradictory character of anonymity's affordances illustrates the ambiguous role of anonymity in democracy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shereen Fernandez

AbstractThe Prevent Duty is part of the UK’s counter-extremism strategy, which aims to prevent individuals from becoming involved in ‘extremism’ and ‘radicalisation’. As a pre-crime measure, the duty is now enforced in public institutions in the UK, from schools to healthcare provisions, and relies on frontline staff to monitor and report on ‘signs’ of extremism and radicalisation. The discussion around Prevent has focused on its implementation and impacts in the public sphere, notably in schools. However, this article aims to disrupt the imagined boundaries of the Prevent Duty and demonstrate how, as a result of this policy, the home—primarily the Muslim home—is treated as a pre-crime space, thus broadening the reach of counter-extremism measures into the private sphere.


Author(s):  
Lara Vetter

Chapter 8 turns to the figure of the spy, a recurrent trope of her 1956 novel Magic Mirror and the accompanying memoir Compassionate Friendship. If the “other woman” is predicated on a position of alterity, the therapist-spy feigns an identification—and an empathetic connection—that does not in fact exist. At the level of the private sphere, H.D. uses espionage as a mode of critiquing Freudian psychoanalysis, offering in its stead the short-lived existential psychology, a movement which grew out of the trauma of World War II and emphasized an empathetic rather than transferential model of therapy. Shifting outward to the public sphere, her analysis of the figure of the spy becomes an examination of the politics of nationalism.


Author(s):  
Vittoria Bernardini

The chapter investigates how women use the practice of speaking out in their activism to bring issues that are significant to them from the private sphere into the public sphere. Specifically, it focuses on analyzing how this was achieved in the case of the #MeToo movement, taken as the most prominent example of activism against sexual harassment in recent years. Using the conceptual tool of counter public sphere developed by Nancy Fraser, the chapter examines two relevant events from #MeToo: the sexual misconduct allegations against actor Aziz Ansari and the circulation of the so-called “Shitty Media Men” list.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document