Masses, Classes and the Public Sphere

by Hill, Mike; Montag, Warren; Aronowitz, Stanley; Balibar, Etienne; Bartolovitch, Crystal

• ISBN13: 9781859847770
• ISBN10: 1859847773
• Edition: 00
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-02-17
• Publisher: VERSO

Summary

Despite the passing of some forty years since the original publication of Jurgen Habermas's The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, the fundamental concepts that informed the book remain prominent and distinctly influential. So much so that the term 'public spheres,' as Habermas introduced it, has today become  an ultimately foundational concept for assessing everything from intellectual debate and 'public access' criticism, to the function of race, gender, and sexual difference in contemporary civil society. As new demands have been made on the concepts, so people have redefined and extended them, positing the idea of a plurality of 'counter-public spheres' (proletarian, bourgeois, feminine, national, global, for instance), and continually addressing the philosophical concept of the public sphere itself. This volume attempts to move beyond these debates to pose fundamental questions about the function and continued relevance of the public sphere today, both politically and practically. A set of distinguished essays, ranging from the philosophical foundations of the Enlightenment to contemporary struggles over civil rights and public policy, seek to highlight the internal conflicts that have marked the progressive development of Habermas's original concept.

Author Biography

Mike Hill is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Albany, New York Warren Montag is Associate Professor of English at Occidental College, Los Angeles

Table of Contents

Introduction
What Was, What is, the Public Sphere? Post-Cold War Reflections	1	(12)
Mike Hill
Warren Montag
Part I The Public in Practice
Inventing London	13	(28)
Crystal Bartolovich
The Right to the City in Los Angeles: Discourse and Practice of a Chicano Alternative Public Sphere	41	(21)
Raul H. Villa
Rituals of Disqualification: Competing Publics and Public Housing in Contemporary Chicago	62	(21)
Jamie Owen Daniel
Unions as Counter-Public Spheres	83	(22)
Stanley Aronowitz
Part II Philosophizing the Public
What Makes a People a People? Rousseau and Kant	105	(27)
Etienne Balibar
The Pressure of the Street: Habermas's Fear of the Masses	132	(14)
Warren Montag
A Displaced Transition: Habermas on the Public Sphere	146	(12)
Ted Stolze
The Withering of Civil Society	158	(21)
Michael Hardt
Part III Public Knowledge
Print-Capitalism?	179	(23)
David McInerney
Of Multitudes and Moral Sympathy: E. P. Thompson, Althusser, and Adam Smith	202	(24)
Mike Hill
Native Daughters in the Promised Land: Gender, Race, and the Question of Separate Spheres	226	(25)
You-me Park
Gayle Wald
Counter-Public Spheres and the Role of Educators as Public Intellectuals: Paulo Freire's Cultural Politics	251	(18)
Henry A. Giroux
Notes on Contributors	269	(2)
Acknowledgments	271	(2)
Index	273