Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Eric B. White
Keyword(s):  
Gertrude Stein ◽  
Pablo Picasso ◽  
Cultural Narratives ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Public ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Subsequent Section ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Gilbert Simondon

The Introduction sets out how transatlantic avant-gardes probed the intricate relationships between socio-technical ensembles, the human body and the quotidian operations of urban living. In the early twentieth century, these bathetic processes had been camouflaged by sublime cultural narratives that magnified the presence of technology in the public sphere while shrouding key aspects of its operations and functions. Beginning with a famous anecdote by Gertrude Stein, in which she describes an encounter between Pablo Picasso and a camouflaged cannon, the Introduction explores how technology became a cipher for avant-gardes’ encounter with modernity in the First World War. Following a survey of its key subjects and chapter synopses, the first section engages with the work of Gilbert Simondon to triangulate key technological terms and concepts, before applying them to modernist and avant-garde studies. The subsequent section builds ‘techno-bathetic’ frameworks from those concepts to critique the means by which technology is transduced into culture. Finally, analyses of Marcel Duchamp’s Encore à cet astre [Once More to This Star] and the radical Harlem Renaissance journal Fire!! illustrate how vanguardists deployed technicity as a crucial creative practice for intervening in cultural narratives and promulgating social change.

Adjusting to Financial Instability in the Interwar Period

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giandomenico Piluso
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Adaptive Strategy ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
International Environment ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Monetary Authorities ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Special Committees ◽  
First World

The chapter provides a reconstruction and analysis of adjustment processes in the Italian financial system after the major cleavage of the First World War. It considers how pressures exerted by external factors entailed a progressive adaptive strategy to a changing international environment. Financial and monetary instability called for a more intensive regulation reallocating responsibilities and powers from the private sector to the public sphere. Accordingly, financial elites changed their contours and boundaries. As the demand for technical competences and bargaining abilities rose, Italian governments and central monetary authorities tended to co-opt competent representatives from the private sector onto special committees at home, at international conferences, or in bilateral negotiations. A telling tale of such processes is represented by changes within the composition of the Italian delegations at major international economic and financial conferences from the Brussels Conference in 1920 to the London Economic and Monetary Conference in 1933.

scholarly journals HOW SOCIAL MEDIA AFFORDS POPULIST POLITICS: REMARKS ON LIMINALITY BASED ON THE BRAZILIAN CASE

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 404-427
Author(s):  
Leticia Cesarino
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Online Ethnography ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
And Linguistics

ABSTRACT In the past decade or so, populism and social media have been outstanding issues both in academia and the public sphere. At this point, evidence from multiple countries suggest that perceived parallels between the dynamics of social media and the mechanics of populist discourse may be more than just incidental, relating to a shared structural field. This article suggests one possible path towards making sense of how the dynamics of social media and the mechanics of populist mobilization have co-produced each other in the last decade or so. Navigating the interface between anthropology and linguistics, it takes key aspects of Victor Turner’s notion of liminality to suggest some of the ways in which social media’s anti-structural affordances may help lay a foundation for the contemporary flourishing of populist discourse: markers of social structure are suspended; communitas is formed; the culture core is addressed; mimesis and anti-structural inversions are performed; subjects become influenceable. I elaborate on this claim based on Brazilian materials, drawn from online ethnography on pro-Bolsonaro WhatsApp groups and other platforms such as Twitter and Facebook since 2018.

The Modern Jew Who Has Given Up the Faith of His Fathers Can Reasonably and Consistently Believe in Isolation

PMLA ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 116 (2) ◽  
pp. 416-428
Author(s):  
Gertrude Stein ◽  
Amy Feinstein
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Gertrude Stein ◽  
The Public ◽  
Composition Class ◽  
Radcliffe College ◽  
The Public Sphere

Gertrude stein wrote the twenty-five-page manuscript “the modern jew who has given up the faith of his fathers can reasonably and consistently believe in isolation” for a composition class at Radcliffe College in 1896, when she was twenty-two years old. The essay is distinctly occasional and reads like an early work. It is, nonetheless, one of the few known pieces in which Stein treats directly the question of Jewish identity and the only one to link that question to a specifically political description of the public sphere. The manuscript thus sheds a remarkable light on a number of the most contested questions in studies of Stein's life and works—the problem of her later protofascist political allegiances, of her sense of her exiled Americanness, and of her treatment of writing as an asemantic medium for sketching mobile identities.

Discussion and Analysis

2014 ◽  
pp. 219-243
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Electronic Publishing ◽  
Visual Artists ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Business ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
New Business Models

A discussion and analysis of the key aspects emerging during the course of the research comprise the basis of this chapter. It addresses, inter alia, the effect of the parallel importing debate on authors’ rights, the issue of publishing contracts, the idea of a “heavenly library” and copyright protection on the Internet, including a discussion on how existing territorial copyright structures may be affected by electronic publishing. This chapter also considers the Google initiatives and possible new business models for authors. The emerging theme of resale royalties for authors is examined and compared with the Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists Act 2009. In conclusion, observations are made on the role of the author in the changing publishing landscape, situating the author as member of the “author sphere” in the context of the public sphere.

scholarly journals Visibility in the digital age: Introduction

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornelia Brantner ◽  
Helena Stehle
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Internet Governance ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Right ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Privacy And Confidentiality ◽  
Scientific Debates

In the digital age, calls for transparency and openness as well as for privacy and confidentiality prevail: Struggles for visibility occur simultaneously with conflicts regarding invisibility and hidden battles for power and privileges of interpretation. Concerns about a loss of digital self-determination exist, just like those regarding the “right to be forgotten” or the right to become invisible and unseen. While the idea of a “transparent user” – as the ultimate notion of (in)voluntary visibility – has caused a broad outcry in society and in scientific debates a few years ago (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008), the discussion has shifted toward considerations of Internet governance and regulation (Camenisch, Fischer-Hübner, & Hansen, 2015). Brighenti (2010, p. 109) has pointed out that visibility has long been one of the key aspects “associated with the public sphere” and that in today’s digitized publics, the “project of democracy can no longer be imagined without taking into account visibility and its outcomes” (Brighenti, 2010, p. 189). Visibility and invisibility, along with their societal outcomes, are increasingly being discussed and analyzed, as they are becoming important dimensions in the accurate description and explanation of digital communication.

scholarly journals Public theology and the translation imperative: A Ricoeurian perspective

2011 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaco S. Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
The Public ◽  
Academic Discussion ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Christian Message

The aim of this article is to contribute to the academic discussion on the inter-linguistic translation of the Christian message in the public sphere. There seems to be consensus amongst academic public theologians and social philosophers such as Habermas about the importance of translating religious language in the public sphere. Views differ, however, on the manner of translation. Five key aspects of Ricoeur’s paradigm of translation are discussed and offered as a framework for the academic discussion in public theology on the translation of the Christian message in the public sphere. It is argued that notions such as the tension between faithfulness and betrayal, the illusion of the perfect translation, striving for equivalence of meaning, the importance of the desire to translate, the work of translation and linguistic hospitality offer insight in the complexity of the translation task as well as its ethical nature.

Höch, Hannah (1889–1978)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sydney Jane Norton
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Commentary ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Artistic Career ◽  
Public Demonstrations ◽  
Female Member

Hannah Höch was a German painter and photomontagist who also worked in modern domestic handicraft, fabric and fashion design. She is primarily known for the photomontages she made during the early part of her artistic career, when she was the only female member of the revolutionary avant-garde group Berlin Dada (1916–1922). Höch’s works were, on the whole, less stridently political than those of her fellow Dadaists, who, in addition to their literary and artistic creations, conveyed their revolutionary ideas in public demonstrations and written manifestos. In contrast, Höch focused primarily on her art, often meshing the domestic realm with the public sphere of Dada. By interweaving these two seemingly disparate realms, the artist was better able to examine constructions of female identity and gender relations. Höch resided in or around Berlin for most of her life. Over the span of her fifty-two-year career her style shifted from social commentary to Surrealism to abstraction, a progression which makes her œuvre impervious to art historical categorization.

scholarly journals Religion and the Public Sphere in Premodern India

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-176
Author(s):  
Christian Lee Novetzke
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Western World ◽  
Social Difference ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
The Public ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Full Shift ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Key Aspects

Abstract When in 1962 Habermas formulated his theory of the public sphere as “a society engaged in critical debate” he sought to describe something he felt was unique to the modern liberal democratic Western world. Yet the creation of discursive spheres where people across lines of social difference debate questions of the common good, mutual interest, and forms of equality long predates the modern era and flourished well outside the “Western” world. This essay adapts Habermas’ influential concept to highlight the emergence of a nascent public sphere at the earliest layers of Marathi literary creation in 13th century India. At this inaugural stage of a regional language’s full shift to writing, we see traces of a debate in the language of everyday life that struggled over the ethics of social difference, a public deliberation that might presage key aspects of Indian modernity and democracy today.

The London Restaurant, 1840-1914

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brenda Assael
Keyword(s):  
Service Sector ◽  
The Public ◽  
Modern Britain ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Hybrid Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Working Day ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First World

This book offers the first scholarly treatment of the history of public eating in London in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. The quotidian nature of taking a meal in public during the working day or evening should not be allowed to obscure the significance of the restaurant (defined broadly, to encompass not merely the prestigious West End restaurant, but also the modest refreshment room, and even the street cart) as a critical component in the creation of modern metropolitan culture. The story of the London restaurant between the 1840s and the First World War serves as an exemplary site for mapping the expansion of commercial leisure, the increasing significance of the service sector, the introduction of technology, the democratization of the public sphere, changing gender roles, and the impact of immigration. The book incorporates what I term ‘gastro-cosmopolitanism’ to highlight the existence of an international, heterogeneous, and even hybrid, culture in London in this period that requires us to think, not merely beyond the nation, but beyond empire. The restaurant also had an important role in contemporary debates about public health and the (sometimes conflicting, but no less often complementary) prerogatives of commerce, moral improvement, and liberal governance. This book considers the restaurant as a business and a place of employment, as well as an important site for the emergence of new forms of metropolitan experience and identity. While focused on London, it illustrates the complex ways in which cultural and commercial forces were intertwined in modern Britain, and demonstrates the rewards of writing histories which recognize the interplay between broad, global forces and highly localized spaces.

INDIA, THE BHAGAVAD GITA AND THE WORLD

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. BAYLY
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Bhagavad Gita ◽  
The Public ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The World ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Bhagavad Gītā ◽  
Changing Role ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
First World

This essay considers the relationship between the Bhagavad Gita as a transnational text and its changing role in Indian political thought. Indian liberals used it to mark out the boundaries between the public sphere they desired and a reformed Hinduism. Indian intellectuals also used the image of Krishna to construct an all-wise founder figure for the new India. Meanwhile, in the transnational sphere of debate, the Gita came to represent India itself in the works of theosophists, spiritual relativists and a variety of intellectual radicals, who approved of the text's ambivalent view of the relationship between political action and the World Spirit. After the First World War, Indian liberals, notably Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, philosopher and later India's second president, used Krishna's words to urge a new and humane international politics infused with the ideal of “detached action”.

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