scholarly journals Three Phases of the Theatrical Public Sphere in Estonian Theatre

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-91
Author(s):  
Eva-Liisa Linder
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Memory ◽  
Theatre Studies ◽  
Civic Awareness ◽  
The Public Sphere

The concept of the public sphere by Jürgen Habermas has inspired humanities and theatre studies. Estonia, as a small post-totalitarian nation state, proves the concept especially relevant as its recent history reveals three different phases of the theatrical public sphere. 1) Theatre as a secret forum. In Soviet times, theatre served as a political and ideological tool, providing a place for keeping the national memory and consolidating society. 2) The active and technical use of the public sphere by newly awakened political theatre NO99 since 2005. 3) The agonistic theatrical public sphere. During the past decade, a whole wave of projects have discussed national identity with concurrent antagonisms: globalization vs nationalism, civic vs ethnic nationalism, the Estonian vs Russianspeaking community. Theatre has commented on two concepts of national identity, e-Estonia and Organic Estonia, innovative digitalization and cultural traditions. The discursive public sphere has led to increased civic awareness and structural changes in the developing democracy, supported integration, and anti-xenophobia in Estonia. At the same time, two main characteristics of the theatrical public sphere have been highlighted: spatiality and political relevance

State contestations in constructions of 1Malaysia

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Mary Varghese ◽  
Kamila Ghazali
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Public ◽  
Malaysian Population ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This article seeks to contribute to the existing body of knowledge about the relationship between political discourse and national identity. 1Malaysia, introduced in 2009 by Malaysia’s then newly appointed 6th Prime Minister Najib Razak, was greeted with expectation and concern by various segments of the Malaysian population. For some, it signalled a new inclusiveness that was to change the discourse on belonging. For others, it raised concerns about changes to the status quo of ethnic issues. Given the varying responses of society to the concept of 1Malaysia, an examination of different texts through the critical paradigm of CDA provide useful insights into how the public sphere has attempted to construct this notion. Therefore, this paper critically examines the Prime Minister’s early speeches as well as relevant chapters of the socioeconomic agenda, the 10th Malaysia Plan, to identify the referential and predicational strategies employed in characterising 1Malaysia. The findings suggest a notion of unity that appears to address varying issues.

The nation and the South in the work of Rosario Romeo: A debate between John Dickie, Lucy Riall and Giuseppe Galasso: The idea of nation in Romeo

Modern Italy ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-84
Author(s):  
John Dickie ◽  
Lucy Riall ◽  
Giuseppe Galasso
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
National Character ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Italian History ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Public Sphere

The last seven or eight years have brought a flood of printer's ink dedicated to the issue of national identity in Italy. At the same time, the new political forces that have emerged since Tangentopoli have all, in various ways, contributed to the re-emergence of patriotism in the language of the public sphere. What would Rosario Romeo have said about this new cultural and political climate? How would he have sought to intervene? It seems likely that he would have turned his famously acerbic critical intelligence on many of the volumes published. A signi. cant number of them merely offer versions of the same old pathologizing version of Italian history, or even, ahistorically, of the Italian national character. All the Sicilian historian would have to do would be to dust off his criticisms of those Anglo-American and Marxist historians who portrayed Italy, in his view, as having had the ‘wrong’ history, of having certain aboriginal defects.

Eccentric modernity? An Islamic perspective on the civilizing process and the public sphere

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armando Salvatore
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Islamic Perspective ◽  
Civilizing Process ◽  
Norbert Elias ◽  
The Public Sphere

This article engages with Johann Arnason’s approach to the entanglements of culture and power in comparative civilizational analysis by simultaneously reframing the themes of the civilizing process and the public sphere. It comments and expands upon some key insights of Arnason concerning the work of Norbert Elias and Jürgen Habermas by adopting an ‘Islamic perspective’ on the processes of singularization of power from its cultural bases and of reconstruction of a modern collective identity merging the steering capacities and the participative ambitions of an emerging urban intelligentsia. The Islamic perspective provides insights into the interplay between civilizing processes and the modes through which cultural traditions innervate a modern public sphere. By revisiting key remarks of Arnason on Elias and Habermas, the Islamic perspective gains original contours, reflecting the search for a type of modernity that is eccentric to the mono-civilizational axis of the Western-led, global civilizing process. While this eccentric positioning entails a severe imbalance of power, it also relativizes the centrality of the modern state in the civilizing process and evidences some original traits of the public sphere in a non-Western context.

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