A Cult of Beauty: The Public Life and Civic Work of Laura Lyon White

The Right to Information Act 2005 was passed by the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government with a sense of pride. It flaunted the Act as a milestone in India’s democratic journey. It is five years since the RTI was passed; the performance on the implementation frontis far from perfect. Consequently, the impact on the attitude, mindset and behaviour patterns of the public authorities and the people is not as it was expected to be. Most of the people are still not aware of their newly acquired power. Among those who are aware, a major chunk either does not know how to wield it or lacks the guts and gumption to invoke the RTI. A little more stimulation by the Government, NGOs and other enlightened and empowered citizens can augment the benefits of this Act manifold. RTI will help not only in mitigating corruption in public life but also in alleviating poverty- the two monstrous maladies of India.

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The Speaking Silence of Citizens in Shakespeare’s Richard III

10.1093/oso/9780198806899.003.0005 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Thomas Cartelli

Keyword(s):

Public Life ◽

Richard Iii ◽

The Public

This chapter examines the commentative words and silences of the citizenry in Richard III, noting that although silence was customarily expected from commoners in the presence of the elite, it could also signify, in both Shakespeare’s version of Richard’s reign and Thomas More’s, the inscrutable resistance of a dissident citizenry. In London, citizen debate and discussion, informed and intelligent, comprised an important forum of Elizabethan public life; and in Shakespeare’s play, citizen non-compliance with the manipulative fabrications of Richard and Buckingham disrupts the performance/reception dynamic to undercut the bonding of the theatre’s citizen audience with the hitherto charismatic Richard. Though their speaking silence betokens the proud heritage of citizen resistance to royal and aristocratic presumption and contempt, Richard and Buckingham obtusely misread this as obtuseness, revealing themselves to be held in a kind of self-hypnosis by the public transcript, memorably subverted by Shakespeare.

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Conclusion

10.1093/oso/9780199731619.003.0011 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Mitch Kachun

Keyword(s):

American History ◽

Colonial America ◽

Public Life ◽

People Of Color ◽

History And Memory ◽

Men And Women ◽

Revolutionary Era ◽

The Public ◽

Historical Significance ◽

The Many

The Conclusion ties together the book’s main arguments about Crispus Attucks’s place in American history and memory. We do not know enough about his experiences, associations, or motives before or during the Boston Massacre to conclude with certainty that Attucks should be considered a hero and patriot. But his presence in that mob on March 5, 1770, embodies the diversity of colonial America and the active participation of workers and people of color in the public life of the Revolutionary era. The strong likelihood that Attucks was a former slave who claimed his own freedom and carved out a life for himself in the colonial Atlantic world adds to his story’s historical significance. The lived realities of Crispus Attucks and the many other men and women like him must be a part of Americans’ understanding of the nation’s founding generations.

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The Public Life of Montaigne

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190215330.013.7 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Philippe Desan

Keyword(s):

Public Life ◽

The Public

Montaigne’s public life extends over more than thirty years—from 1556 to 1588. His first career was as a member of the parlement from 1554 to 1570, one that reflected the desire of his father, Pierre Eyquem. After leaving his post of councilor in the parlement of Bordeaux, he displayed his diplomatic ambitions, which were not rewarded. In 1581, Montaigne was appointed mayor of Bordeaux for two years; he was reelected to this position in 1583. After his term of office ended, for a time he played the role of negotiator between Henry III and the leader of the Protestant party, Henry of Navarre. Imprisoned in 1588, he abandoned all political ambitions and ended his public life before retiring to his château. The public life of Montaigne allows us to consider the Essays as an attempt at political reappropriation in the aftermath of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre.

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Duncan Wilson, Tissue Culture in Science and Society: The Public Life of a Biological Technique in Twentieth Century Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Pp. x+182. ISBN 978-0-230-28427-2. £50.00 (hardback).

The British Journal for the History of Science ◽

10.1017/s0007087412000994 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 45 (3) ◽

pp. 475-476

Author(s):

Dmitriy Myelnikov

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Tissue Culture ◽

Public Life ◽

Science And Society ◽

The Public ◽

Biological Technique ◽

Culture In Science

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The Public Sphere in the Field of Power

Social Science History ◽

10.1017/s0145553200011287 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 34 (3) ◽

pp. 301-335 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Craig Calhoun

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Public Sphere ◽

Public Life ◽

Early Nineteenth Century ◽

Public Spheres ◽

Social Foundations ◽

The Public ◽

The Social ◽

Late Eighteenth ◽

The Public Sphere

In this article I ask (1) whether the ways in which the early bourgeois public sphere was structured—precisely by exclusion—are instructive for considering its later development, (2) how a consideration of the social foundations of public life calls into question abstract formulations of it as an escape from social determination into a realm of discursive reason, (3) to what extent “counterpublics” may offer useful accommodations to failures of larger public spheres without necessarily becoming completely attractive alternatives, and (4) to what extent considering the organization of the public sphere as a field might prove helpful in analyzing differentiated publics, rather than thinking of them simply as parallel but each based on discrete conditions. These considerations are informed by an account of the way that the public sphere developed as a concrete ideal and an object of struggle in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain.

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