Changing Perceptions of the Public Sphere

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Conference @ Rice University
(December 15-16, 2005)

All sessions take place in the Humanities Building, Room 117

Thursday, December 15

9:30-10:00
Registration & Coffee

10:00-10:30
Introductory Addresses by Gary Wihl (Dean, School of Humanities) and Caroline Levander (Director, Center for the Study of Cultures)

10:30-12:30 Early Modern Public Spheres (Chair: John Zammito)
Joachim Whaley, A Public Sphere before Kant? Habermas and the Historians of Early Modern Germany
Sarah Westphal, Public Family, Private Lives: Kunegunde of Bavaria and Habsburg Historiography, 1520-1721

12:30-14:00
Lunch, Cohen House, Card Room

14:00-16:00 Public Intellectuals (Chair: Julie Fette)
Lora Wildenthal, Human Rights and the Public Sphere in the Early Federal Republic
Daniel Cohen, Refugee Envy: French Intellectuals and Political Asylum after 1945

16:00-16:30
Coffee & Tea

16:30-18:00 The Formation of Publics (Chair: Peter C. Caldwell)
Steven Crowell, Norms, Consensus, and the Public Sphere
James Faubion, Foresight: Notes on Policy-Formation and the Formation of Publics in the Contemporary European Union

19:00
Dinner at Trevisio Restaurant (Texas Medical Center), hosted by Gary Wihl (Dean, School of Humanities)

 

Friday, December 16

9:00-10:30 Eighteenth-Century Publics (Chair: Rachel Zuckert)
John Zammito, What is the Current Status of the "Public Sphere" Thesis in Enlightenment Historiography?
Nicholas Boyle, Private, Public, and Structural Change: The German Problem

10:30-11:00
Coffee & Tea

11:00-12:30 Social Imaginaries (Chair: Sarah Westphal)
David Midgley, Probing the Limits: The Contribution of Literary Writing to Defining the Public Sphere
Steven Lewis, Public Spaces and Collective Identity: Advertising and the Transnational Public in Asia

12:30-14:00
Lunch, Cohen House, Esther Room

14:00-15:30 The Circulation of Knowledge (Chair: Rachel Zuckert)
Christian Emden, Making Things (Almost) Public: Epistemic Constellations between Science and Society
Christopher Kelty, Geeks, Internets, and Recursive Publics

15:30-16:00
Coffee & Tea

16:00-18:00 Keynote Address (Chair: Christian Emden)
James Tully, On the Question of Global Public Spheres

19:00
Dinner at Mockingbird Restaurant (1985 Welch St.), hosted by Caroline Levander (Director, Center for the Study of Cultures)

 

Download the Program here (PDF file, ca. 350 KB)