Reframing Reproduction in Vernacular Periodicals: A Study of Contraception in Late Colonial Bengal

With the emergence of the thriving literary public sphere around the close of the 19th century across colonial India, the issue of birth control was being debated in various magazines by economists, sexologists, doctors and members of women’s organizations. The discussions on reproductive rights of women and dissemination of contraceptive information published in various vernacular periodicals can be situated within a network of other contemporary discourses on “economizing reproduction” that were gaining visibility around this time. The present paper would like to explore the perceptions of women’s reproductive body at the beginning of the 20th century that were being forged through coalescing narratives on bourgeois norms of obscenity (aslilata?), biopolitical concerns of an emerging nation state in the last throes of anti-colonial struggle, and various takes on (heteronormative) interpersonal relationships between future citizens. It is within this specific context that I would like to examine articles on birth control published during the early 1930s in the ‘self-styled’ Bengali women’s magazine Jayasree? launched by revolutionary leader Leela Nag. By situating the opinions voiced by the men and women writing in the pages of this literary periodical vis-à-vis contemporary intellectual trends of birth control movement in India, this paper seeks to study the interactive textual ecosystem within which the writers and readers (the implied future authors) of Jayasree? were functioning.

Networks, Politics, and the Literary Public Sphere: The Foundation of Modern Democracy in Taiwan (1970s–1990s)

This article examines how literature is a networked social space of political repression and resistance, refracting broader contestations over national sovereignty, self-determination, and identity. Politicizing the traditionally apolitical “world of letters” in Habermas’s Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, this article employs a novel analysis of the influence that the literary public sphere wields over political consciousness. Using the historical case of Taiwan’s literary networks from the 1970s to the 1990s, this article asserts that the literary public sphere produces a rational-critical generalization of knowledge and exposure to dissonant perspectives that invigorates civil society by creating intelligentsia. Through intelligentsia, ideas within the Taiwanese literary public sphere birthed powerful Dangwai parties that instituted democracy, informed their platforms, and ushered in a new wave of political elites. The Taiwanese case demonstrates how civic tasks can predict political tasks with enough force to stimulate a unique postcolonial political consciousness and spark a revolution.

Entertainment Media and the Aesthetic Public Sphere

This article introduces the concept of the “aesthetic public sphere” as a way for cultural sociologists to understand the civic impact of entertainment media. The idea of the aesthetic public sphere draws on Jürgen Habermas’s discussion of the literary public sphere from a more cultural and historically even-handed perspective. In his Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Habermas noted the important connection between entertainment media and the development of democratic communication norms. This article examines three components of the aesthetic public sphere. First, aesthetic publics work at the level of the social imaginary. Second, aesthetic publics provide a space for commentary about important matters of common concern. Third, aesthetic publics encourage debates about cultural policy in a way that increases the importance of cultural citizenship within civil society. The article concludes by considering how cultural globalization reinforces the importance of the aesthetic public sphere.

Introduction

The subject of “authorship and copyright” is an extensive field, encompassing a vast area of research possibilities, spanning areas of law and humanities. This book is situated at the intersection of copyright legislation and literary critical theory on the issue of authorship of written work. The writer, poised at this nexus, has drawn together data from a range of primary sources, namely Australian authors, publishers, and specialist academics, as well as secondary data analysis of legislation, case law, author contracts, and literature in this field. Significantly, it reflects the views of authors in a challenging transitional period that incorporates issues such as the Google initiatives, the parallel import debate, and the shift from traditional print to electronic publishing. The book aims to provide a snapshot of this purposive sample of Australian authors’ perspectives on copyright issues at a pivotal point in history when authors find themselves between the old and the new, grappling with the realities of traditional expectations and digital advances in publishing. Furthermore, the book sets out to position Australian authors in the changing and expanding literary public sphere within which they find themselves, with reference to global considerations. There has been very little other research on Australian authors’ views on copyright, and the changing copyright landscape brought about by the Internet provides an important, if unwieldy, environment in which to investigate authors’ perceptions of this legal concept that impacts so intrinsically upon their creative rewards.

The Author on Stage: Björn Ranelid as Performance Artist

Media development has profoundly affected the literary public sphere. Authors as well as politicians may feel obliged to follow “the law of compulsory visibility” (John B. Thompson). All contemporary writers, be it bestselling authors or exclusive, high brow poets, must in one way or another reflect on their marketing and media strategies. Meeting and communicating with the audience, the potential readers, is of critical importance. In the article “The Author on Stage”, the authors consider how different literary performances by Swedish novelist Björn Ranelid (b. 1949) help establish his “brand name” on the literary market place.