1. What is the public sphere?
A place? An ideal? A theory/concept?

2. A place where “private persons come together to form a public.”
Who is a person? What is a public?

3. Habermas’s theory of the public sphere:
Open to persons
Free of coercion
A place of free assembly and speech
An outlet for rational discussion and debate

4. For Habermas, democracy requires the public sphere.

5. Critique of Public Sphere
Is vague about membership
Does not account for social inequities (including race, class, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability)
Does not address power dynamics
Does not address cultural practices
It is an ideal rather than a theory of current material realities

6. Case Study: York University
Is York public or private?
What constitutes public sphere at York?
What are the conditions of membership?
How do we decide what or whom is public or private at York ?
What are the power dynamics ruling public conversations at York?
How public is public?