Laurier2007

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Laurier2007
BibType ARTICLE
Key Laurier2007
Author(s) Eric Laurier, Chris Philo
Title “A parcel of muddling muckworms”: revisiting Habermas and the English coffee house
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Cafes, Habermas, Public Space
Publisher
Year 2007
Language
City
Month
Journal Social and Cultural Geography
Volume 8
Number 2
Pages 259–281
URL Link
DOI 10.1080/14649360701360212
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

In the context of a research project concerned with contemporary cafés, the authors have revisited Habermas's famous 1962/1989 work on the transformation of the ‘public sphere’, wherein the figure of the early-modern English coffee-house holds considerable significance. The outlines of Habermas's claims are inspected, and three lines of critique—to do with spatiality, sociability and practices—are held up against his depiction of coffee-houses as contained and egalitarian spaces of calm rational-critical debate. Theoretical work is combined with a re-reading of Habermas's fragmentary notes on the coffee-house, together with borrowings from both secondary texts and republished primary sources. The chief aim is to develop critical materials to inform further inquiry into coffee-houses and similar establishments, past and present, as sites for the practical conduct of public life.

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