Reign of Appearances: The Misery and Splendor of the Public SphereThe public sphere is the realm of appearances - not citizenship. Its central event is spectacle - not dialogue. Marked by an asymmetry between the few who act and the many who watch, and subjecting all its contents to visibility, the public sphere can undermine liberal democracy, law, and morality. But the public sphere also liberates us from the burdens and bondages of private life and fosters an existentially vital aesthetic experience. Reign of Appearances uses a great variety of cases to reveal the logic of the public sphere, including homosexuality in Victorian England; the 2008 crash; antisemitism in Europe; confidence in American presidents; communications in social media; special prosecutor investigations; the visibility of African-Americans; violence during the French Revolution; the Islamic veil; contemporary sexual politics; public executions; and pricing in art. This unconventional account of the public sphere is critical reading for anyone who wants to understand the effects of visibility in urban life, politics, and the media. |
Contents
A Realistic Perspective | 15 |
Publicity | 43 |
Politics in Public | 69 |
Content Regulation | 94 |
1 | 118 |
7 | 136 |
8 | 146 |
Endnotes | 159 |
111 | 169 |
| 177 | |
| 201 | |
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Reign of Appearances: The Misery and Splendor of the Public Sphere Ari Adut No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
action activity Adut aesthetic agora American public sphere anonymous appear Arendt attention audience become censorship century citizens citizenship civic civil collective contemporary conventional perspective court culture dialogue discourse Donald Trump elite equally especially example executive fact flâneur focus Foucault French gaze Geertz Habermas homosexuality ical independent counsel individual instance interaction invisible Jewish Jews Kenneth Starr less lettres de cachet liberal liberal democracies look mass media matter modern moral norms O. J. Simpson objectified objects one’s Oscar Wilde participation Paula Jones percent person political actors politicians presidents private sphere prosecutors public events public spaces public sphere punishment purdah representation Rousseau sambenito scandal secret sensory sexual simply social society spectacle spectators spectatorship speech Starr strangers street subordinate surveillance synecdochic talk television things third parties tion transgression trial urban usually visible visual voting watch Watergate women words