Please join the CJMD on Wednesday March 6 at 9 am for a virtual talk by Professor Martín Bowen of NYU Abu Dhabi. He will discuss how ordinary people in Chile revolutionized communication and laid the foundations for a new, modern public sphere in the country.
Communication, Dissent, and the Origins of the Modern Public Sphere in Chile
This talk tells the story of how ordinary people in Chile revolutionized communication and laid the foundations for a new, modern public sphere in the country. Between 1780 and 1833, this remote Spanish colony underwent profound political changes, culminating in its emergence as an independent nation-state. Alongside this regime change, a second, even more dramatic transformation unfolded. By engaging in a series of dissenting communicative actions, Chileans from all walks of life—from royalist women to African-descended artisans—reimagined their ability to affect each other and the norms that should govern public life. Without intending to, people across the political and social spectrum dismantled the monarchical notion of a sacralized, homogeneous public sphere and gradually forged a profaned and relatively pluralistic one. By radically historicizing the concept of communication and revisiting past controversies over multiple forms of interpersonal impact, this talk advances a novel approach to conceiving and practicing the history of communication.
About the Speaker: Martín Bowen is Associate Professor of History at New York University Abu Dhabi. He is the author of The Age of Dissent: Revolution and the Power of Communication in Chile, 1780–1833 (University of New Mexico Press, 2023).