Modernism, Internationalism and the Russian Revolution

Author(s):  
David Ayers

Modernism, Internationalism and the Russian Revolution examines responses to the Russian Revolution and the formation of the League of Nations in literature and journalism in the years following 1917. It examines early attempts to assess the Revolution, how the Bolsheviks intervened in the British public sphere, how visitors to Moscow responded to meeting Lenin and Trotsky, and the manner in which the League and Revolution occupied the work of such figures as T.S. Eliot, Leonard Woolf, Maynard Keynes, Clare Sheridan and H.G. Wells. This study reveals the extent and complexity of the debate about revolution and nationalities which was a dominant feature of public discourse. Drawing on the responses of journalists and literary authors, including some figures rarely considered in the context of literary modernism, such as Tomáš Masaryk and Henry Noel Brailsford, it gives new insights into the relationship between modernist literature and the geopolitical shifts which governed the period, and demonstrates how a new age of transnational politics began.

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (1, 2 & 3) ◽  
pp. 2006
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. Berger

The relationship between law and religion in contemporary civil society has been a topic of increasing social interest and importance in Canada in the past many years. We have seen the practices and commitments of religious groups and individuals become highly salient on many issues of public policy, including the nature of the institution of marriage, the content of public education, and the uses of public space, to name just a few. As the vehicle for this discussion, I want to ask a straightforward question: When we listen to our public discourse, what is the story that we hear about the relationship between law and religion? How does this topic tend to be spoken about in law and politics – what is our idiom around this issue – and does this story serve us well? Though straightforward, this question has gone all but unanswered in our political and academic discussions. We take for granted our approach to speaking about – and, therefore, our way of thinking about – the relationship between law and religion. In my view, this is most unfortunate because this taken-for-grantedness is the source of our failure to properly understand the critically important relationship between law and religion.


Author(s):  
Alexey Salikov

The question of how the digital transformation of the public sphere affects political processes has been of interest to researchers since the spread of the Internet in the early 1990s. However, today there is no clear or unambiguous answer to this question; expert estimates differ radically, from extremely positive to extremely negative. This article attempts to take a comprehensive approach to this issue, conceptualizing the transformations taking place in the public sphere under the influence of Internet communication technologies, taking their political context into account, and identifying the relationship between these changes and possible transformations of political regimes. In order to achieve these goals, several tasks are tackled during this research. The first section examines the issue as to whether the concept of the public sphere can be used in a non-democratic context. It also delineates two main types of the public sphere, the “democratic public sphere” and the “authoritarian public sphere,” in order to take into account the features of public discourse in the context of various political regimes. The second section discusses the special aspects of the digital transformation of the public sphere in a democratic context. The third section considers the special aspects of the digital transformation of the public sphere in a non-democratic context. The concluding section summarizes the results of the study, states the existing gaps and difficulties, outlines the ways for their possible extension, and raises questions requiring attention from other researchers.


Author(s):  
David Ayers

This chapter outlines the attempts of journalists in the New Age and the New Statesman to understand and evaluate the events of the Russian Revolution as they occurred, with reference to such figures as Alfred Orage and Julius West. It then describes elements of early nationalities discourse in the writings of Leonard Woolf and J.A. Hobson, who debated the potential of a League of Nations as the basis of a postwar peace. These discourses about the Revolution and League would begin to change as the Revolution developed and Woodrow Wilson threw American weight behind the League.


2021 ◽  
pp. 185-192
Author(s):  
Tanya Agathocleous

This concluding chapter analyses Mahatma Gandhi's trial for disaffection in 1922 to show how his canny appropriation of the term as a badge of honor helped galvanize the nationalist movement and reframe the terms of public discourse, bringing the critical subtext and covert nationalism of earlier journalism — its purported disaffection — to the fore and refashioning it as good rather than bad affect. The chapter discusses a brief account of the stakes of this research for the contemporary context. It further explains the concept of disaffection and its value as a way of understanding the relationship between the content of politics and the form of publics. By exploring the dynamics of the imperial public sphere, the chapter sheds a light on why publics continue to be shaped by feelings of exclusion and why exclusion is understood as a feeling. Ultimately, the chapter explains why censorship and free speech debates today so often coalesce around questions of identity and civility.


Ingen spøk ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 31-52
Author(s):  
Pål Ketil Botvar

Do Norwegians think it is okay to laugh at humour that is related to religion? This is the question I explore, based on a representative survey conducted in Norway. In recent years the relationship between religion and humour has been a topic of public discourse, sparked initially in 2005/2006 when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and the Norwegian weekly Magazinet published cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The publications led to heated debate, riots and demonstrations in different parts of the world. The 2015 attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo brought the topic back into the public eye. The controversy over boundaries for joking about religion is part of a larger debate about freedom of expression and the rights of vulnerable groups such as religious minorities. Given the public debate on the topic, one can assume that many Norwegians have made up their minds about the topic of humour and religion in the public sphere.


2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-381
Author(s):  
Elisabeth S. Clemens

The relationship between the development of rational public discourse and the expansion of democratic participation provides a focus for the comparative and historical analysis of the public sphere. Major scholars disagree, however, on the character of this linkage. As the contributions to this symposium demonstrate, the resulting debates have generated a rich literature in historical sociology. For Charles Tilly, public discourse and democratic participation proceeded largely in tandem, tracing out one important lineage in the history of democracy. An alternative understanding, informed by the early work of Jürgen Habermas, produces a more conflicted account of the tensions between democratic inclusion and rational deliberation. In their contributions to this symposium, Craig Calhoun and Andrew Abbott reconstruct the shifting and contested public arenas of London and Chicago. In an essay written after the original session for which my comments were crafted, Andreas Koller outlines a substantial agenda for comparative historical research on the public sphere.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 83-103
Author(s):  
Mai Mogib Mosad

This paper maps the basic opposition groups that influenced the Egyptian political system in the last years of Hosni Mubarak’s rule. It approaches the nature of the relationship between the system and the opposition through use of the concept of “semi-opposition.” An examination and evaluation of the opposition groups shows the extent to which the regime—in order to appear that it was opening the public sphere to the opposition—had channels of communication with the Muslim Brotherhood. The paper also shows the system’s relations with other groups, such as “Kifaya” and “April 6”; it then explains the reasons behind the success of the Muslim Brotherhood at seizing power after the ousting of President Mubarak.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Francoeur

There is a tendency, particularly among Western pundits and technologists, to examine the Internet in almost universally positive terms; this is most evident in any discussion of the medium’s capacity for democratization. While the Internet has produced many great things for society in terms of cultural and economic production, some consideration must be given to the implications that such a revolutionary medium holds for the public sphere. By creating a communicative space that essentially grants everyone his or her own microphone, the Internet is fragmenting public discourse due to the proliferation of opinions and messages and the removal of traditional gatekeepers of information. More significantly, because of the structural qualities of the Internet, users no longer have to expose themselves to opinions and viewpoints that fall outside their own preconceived notions. This limits the robustness of the public sphere by limiting the healthy debate that can only occur when exposed to multiple viewpoints. Ultimately, the Internet is not going anywhere, so it is important to equip the public with the tools and knowledge to be able to navigate the digital space. 


Author(s):  
Robin M. Boylorn

This chapter considers the role, importance, and impact of public intellectualism on the future of qualitative research. The chapter argues that the move toward technology and the public dissemination of information via the internet requires a shift in how and what we research with an expressed intention of reaching a broader and nonacademic audience. The chapter considers the relationship between the private and public sphere, and the so-called “bastardization” of intellectualism to explain the role and rise of public intellectualism in qualitative research. By considering issues such as personal subjectivity, accountability, representation, and epistemological privilege, the chapter discusses how public contexts inform qualitative research and, conversely, how qualitative research can inform the public.


2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122110251
Author(s):  
Zahraa Badr

The Egyptian media has witnessed various changes in the ownership spectrum after the 2011 revolution. To explore this evolution, and through the Habermasian lens, this study examined ownership concentration in the 2019 media sphere in Egypt by mapping media outlets and their owners. It also investigated the relationship between this concentration and content diversity in a sample of print outlets in the first quarter of 2019. Three patterns of ownership concentration in the Egyptian media were identified: concentrated state ownership, concentrated private ownership, and not concentrated private ownership. Based on these findings, I argue that the media sphere in Egypt is dominated by a few gatekeepers, mostly the state, that influence content diversity and jeopardize the democratic public sphere in postrevolution Egypt.


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