Publics and Counterpublics Orphans hopeful hug

hopeful hug

Infused with Ross's trademark humor

A painful but ultimately empowering queer history lesson

Bersani's intervention champions a truly disruptive vision of homosexuality

Baker had no idea his creation would become an international emblem of liberation and inclusiveness

Publics and Counterpublics Orphans hopeful hugPublics and Counterpublics revolves around a central question: What is a public? The idea of a public is a cultural form, a kind of practical fiction, present in the modern world in a way that is very different from other or earlier societies. Like the idea of rights, or nations, or markets, it can now seem universal. But it has not always been so. Publics exist only by virtue of their imagining. They are a kind of fiction that has taken on life, and