Re-Imagining Public Space

Public space, both literally and figuratively, is foundationally important to political life. From Socratic lectures in the public forum, to Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, public spaces have long played host to political discussion and protest. The book provides a direct assessment of the role that public space plays in political life.

"Reclaiming the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, this volume breathes new life into the now familiar debate over the privatization, commodification, and commercialization of democratic public space. The essays vividly capture the late modern predicament of a culture that is being entertained to death while its already greatly attenuated spaces for practices of collective critique vanish. The authors show that there is no easy solution, but that there are still genuinely insightful ways of grasping and addressing the problem." Linda Zerilli, University of Chicago, USA "While reminding us of its vital importance to a democratic society, Boros and Glass have assembled a collection of essays that make a unique and defining contribution to newly conceptualizing, for our age, the meaning of public space, the public sphere, the idea of the public itself, all of which have not received the attention they deserve in recent contemporary political theory. Re-Imagining Public Space is a clarion call to refocus our intellectual energies on what is fundamental and indispensable to a democratic form of life.' Morton Schoolman, State University of New York at Albany, USA

James M. Glass, University of Maryland, USADiana Boros, St. Mary's College of Maryland, USADouglas Kellner, University of California, Los Angeles, USAC. Fred Alford, University of Maryland, College Park, USAMary Caputi, California State University, Long Beach, USAMichael J. Thompson, William Paterson University, USALauren Langman, Loyola University of Chicago, USAWilliam E. Scheuerman, Indiana University, Bloomington, USAMalcolm F. Miles, Plymouth University, UKMichael Diamond, University of Missouri, USADavid Ingram, Loyola University, USAAsaf Bar-Tura, Loyala University, USALars Rensmann, John Cabot University, USAHaley Smith, St. Mary's College of Maryland, USA