World Languages and Cultures in the Public Sphere

Abstract

The essays in this volume represent a cross-section of current scholarship examining the implications of the concept of Offentlichkeit (the public sphere), originally conceived by the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas in the early 1960s, in his socio-historical study Strukturwandel der Offentlichkeit (The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere). The contributions herein add to the discourse surrounding an evolving public sphere using diverse perspectives to explore a variety of contexts in which this concept appears and reappears. For almost forty years, the Southeast Conference for Languages, Literatures and Film (SCFLLF) has been a premier platform for the discussion and dissemination of the latest scholarship in the Humanities, with emphasis on non-English area studies. The current volume showcases some of the most impactful papers originally presented at the 25th SCFLLF, held in Asheville, North Carolina, in March of 2023.

About the Author

Margit Grieb is Associate Professor of German Studies at the University of South Florida. She has published a monograph on the intersections of film and new media, as well as articles and chapters on German-language television and film, videogames, avant-garde film, and second language acquisition.

Will Lehman is Professor of German, Spanish, and International Studies and Head of the Department of World Languages at Western Carolina University. He has published articles and book chapters on the German filmmaker Werner Herzog, the intersections of Germanness and Jewishness in South America, and instructional technology in the foreign language classroom. 

Yves-Antoine Clemmen is Professor of French at Stetson University. His research areas include general linguistics, 20th- and 21st-century Francophone literature, contemporary Francophone Belgian writers, and Grand-Guignol Theatre.