Changing Perceptions of the Public Sphere

Description

Convenors: David Midgley (Cambridge) and Christian Emden (Rice University, USA)

Changing Perceptions of the Public Sphere is a two-year research collaboration between Rice University, represented by the School of Humanities and the Center for European Studies, and the University of Cambridge (England), represented by the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) and the Department of German. The research project seeks to examine the changes the “public sphere” has undergone as a conceptual model and as a discursive formation of actual political culture.

Given the new geographies of power that have emerged over the last twenty years or so in the context of globalization, it is more than timely to investigate the public sphere from an interdisciplinary perspective that brings together scholars from a range of different fields, such as history, literary studies, international relations, philosophy, and cultural geography. These scholars will meet at two conferences, one was held at Rice University, USA December 15-16, 2005, the other at Trinity College in the University of Cambridge, July 10-12, 2006.