Unbounded Publics Transgressive Public Spheres, Zapatismo, and Political Theory

This book is about the public sphere and the various ways it has been theorized as a driving mechanism for social and political change. Public spheres are the places where people come together to actively engage in new ideas and arguments, where collective interests and a collective political will are formed, and where social movements and rebellions get their start. Conventionally, the public sphere has been understood nationally as a body made up of citizens who gather in particular places and times and who speak to the governments that claim to represent them. But increasingly, in light of debates about globalization, theorists are considering the political possibilities for transnational context. Unbounded Publics argues that there has been and can be a different kind of sphere, a transgressive public sphere one that exists in both contexts at once.

Richard Gilman-Opalsky is assistant professor of political philosophy at the University of Illinois.