Civil Society

What is this seemingly important thing called civil society? In order to gain a solid understanding of civil society, in this course we go back to its modern day roots. Indeed, we get up from our seats, pick up our garden tools and head to the garden. Together, we sit and dig. Funny thing is, most people don’t seem to know what carrots really look like. It is therefore not surprising that what we find looks and feels very different than what ‘packaged civil society’ looks like on supermarket shelves. After establishing origins, the course continues the explorative adventure by looking into some salient issues that surround civil society. We shall look at the importance of law and media in ‘growing carrots’, as well as visiting different ‘gardens’ in Egypt, Turkey and Gaza.

Objectives: To introduce students to the writings of Gramsci and Habermas To understand the different actors of civil society and their role To examine the role of media and law To play with this idea of 'uncivil civil society' To be familiar with local case studies