If we are to believe what many sociologists are telling us, the public sphere is in a near terminal state. Our ability to build solidarities with strangers and to agree on the general significance of needs and problems seems to be collapsing. These cultural potentials appear endangered by a newly aggressive attempt to universalize and extend the norms of the market. For the past four decades the social theorist Jürgen Habermas has explored the relevance and meaning of the public sphere, as well as diagnosing its on-going crises. In the contemporary climate, a systematic look...

In "Feminism as Radical Humanism," Pauline Johnson calls for a reassessment of feminism's relationship to modern humanism. She argues that despite its very thorough and necessary critique of mainstream formulations of humanist ideals, feminism itself...

Half-Mohawk, half-English author Pauline Johnson astounded Canada with her unique poetry, prose, and presentations.

Pauline Johnson was an unusual and unique presence on the literary scene during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Part Mohawk and part European, she was a compelling female voice in the midst of an almost entirely male writing community. Having discovered her talent for public recitation of poetry, Johnson relied on her ancestry and gender to establish an international reputation for her stage performances, during which she appeared in European and native...