The study attempts to make a connection between cultural consumption and political citizenship. It accomplishes that by critiquing Jürgen Habermas' notions of “public sphere” and “power” from a feminist perspective. The study proposes “cultural citizenship” as a helpful concept …
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This thesis argues that the elite and urban women leaders of the Palestinian women’s movement neglected to engage rural women and women living in refugee camps as their equals in a women’s movement. Further, despite women's active presence in the public sphere, the sphere remain…
This dissertation focuses on public discourse in Egypt from 2000 to 2010 under Mubarak's authoritarian regime, which placed severe restrictions on public conversation. I ask the following question: Why, in a highly repressive, authoritarian state, were relatively weak, underpriv…
This thesis examines the role that digital technology plays in the advancement of political and social goals. Though a fairly recent phenomenon, digital activism has become a highly contested topic as regards its effectiveness. This thesis looks at two case studies in the use of…
Building upon the important work of Roberto Alejandro (1993), this study pursues a hermeneutic and dialogic conception of the public sphere, a phenomenology of the public sphere, and rejects liberal conceptions of civil society grounded in a principally conservative narrative in…
This dissertation seeks to define the proper role for religious discourse in the American public square. I contend that religious viewpoints should be welcomed in public discourse, though this is often not the case. This project examines the background of current conceptions of …
Benevolent and mutual benefit societies, associations for the care of the sick and burial of the dead, fraternal lodges, literary associations, Sunday schools, orphan asylums, hospitals and Jewish cemeteries constituted an American Jewish public sphere—the realm of social and ci…
This study examines state-society relations in post-communist Kazakhstan from a civil society perspective. It discusses in detail the historical developments that shaped the growth and decline of civil society development. In contrast to the studies of democratization, which ass…
This dissertation applies public sphere theory to the inter-state system. I argue that the globalization of publicity—the worldwide rise of literacy, deliberative forums, free press and other media—has led to the emergence of public spheres in the states system. At any level pub…
Traditional religious communities view multiculturalism and other forms of liberal secularism as committed to relegating religious aspects of life to the irrelevant margins of civil society by excluding them from public discourse. Faced with such institutional and structural der…
In this dissertation I inquire into the ideological and social roots of Pashtun ethno-nationalism in Afghanistan, by analyzing political-economic history; biography; and written and oral Pashto literature. Demands for the proper public realization of Pashtun identity were not un…
Many communication scholars are very conscious of the Western ethnocentric bias in the discipline (especially in journalism). They acknowledge that the role and the influence of the press is interpreted along the Western understanding that the press is very influential with the …
This dissertation explores the ways in which the current constitutional system in Turkey is being contested and negotiated around the constitutive norm of secularism and the place and role of Islam, as these negotiations are carried out in various sites of everyday life. Islamic…
In recent years, the intensification of the globalization process and reactions to it by particular groups and identities, has raised awareness of the question of difference in nation states. National identity for a long time has been able to establish itself as a hegemonic enti…
Ethnographically and conceptually, this dissertation is concerned with the discourses and practices through which a panoply of civil Muslim actors and institutions articulates a coherent mode of liberal piety in relation to both the imperatives of Turkish secularism and other de…
The revitalization of Islam in Indonesia over the past 25 years is part of a global revival of Islam. At a time when religion is reasserting itself in public life, this study investigates how religion can empower women in the public sphere and how religion is part of the ways wo…
At the dawn of the 21st century, a "critical mass" of educated, enlightened, and empowered Muslim women have emerged around the world. Their fundamental questions about Islam and women may help in transforming Islamic laws and bringing about modern, egalitarian Muslim societies.…
The following dissertation provides an ethnographic study of transformations that accompany the emergence of innovative media and communication technologies in the African Muslim nation of Morocco. Drawing on field research conducted in Casablanca, Morocco, this work addresses t…
Medieval Middle Eastern scholars Ibn al-Muqaffa', al-Farabi, Kay Ka'us, Niz[dotbelow]am al-Mulk, and Ibn Khaldun had something in common. Though their voices emerged from vastly different circumstances, they were all able to express their perspectives on political subjects (such…