The Beirut Conference on Public Spheres
Beirut, Lebanon
October 22-24, 2004

The Social Science Research Council (New York) and The American University of Beirut invite proposals for papers and presentations at an international conference: “The Beirut Conference on Public Spheres,” to be held on October 22-24, 2004 in Beirut, Lebanon. The conference will be co-organized by the SSRC Program on the Middle East and North Africa and the Center for Behavioral Research at AUB.

The concept of “Public Spheres,” as elaborated by different social theorists, has generated an important literature on the conditions shaping public discourses, on the nature of “publics” and “public action” and on the implications of such processes for democratic theory. The literature on these issues is becoming increasingly comparative and critical, demonstrating the limits of the original notion as emanating from a particular view of European history and specific socio-political transformations.

This conference aims at promoting inter-disciplinary discussions that examine Public Spheres in the context of the Middle East and North Africa but also addressing cross-regional / cross-national comparisons and advancing theoretical approaches to the notion of the Public Sphere.