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Working Groups

Cultural Difference and Democracy

This working group provides an opportunity for the comparative exchange of ideas and the production of new theoretical and empirical knowledge about the complex intertwinings of cultural difference and democracy. Our goals include the development of innovative ways of investigating and understanding the values, beliefs, practices, institutions, processes and relationships that enable and that are enabled by recognizably democratic politics. Among the topics the working group investigates are the relationships between concepts of citizenship and the state, the relationship between subjectivity and political desire, the role of rituals of communication and greeting in the structuring of public debate, the role of cultural legitimacy in the justification of political claims, the value of debate, the role of cultural legitimacy in the justification of political claims, the value of transparency in the dissemination of public information, the deep and complex relationships among economic, cultural and political values, and substantialist versus proceduralist concepts of democracy.
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About the Institute

The Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities at The Ohio State University has as its mission:

• To facilitate emergent collaborations between humanities faculty and others across the university;
• To foster innovative forms of interdisciplinary education for undergraduates and graduate students;
• To enable the humanities to act as a significant bridge between the University, the city of Columbus and the broader public culture.

It seeks to be an active forum for exchange between scholars and citizens, both on- and off-campus, and a place where the University can think creatively about what it does.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2007, the Institute is located just east of OSU's main campus, in the George Wells Knight House, originally the home of the first chair of History at Ohio State. ICRPH has been underwritten by the College of Humanities, by an Academic Enrichment award from the Office of Academic Affairs, by generous special allocations from the Ohio General Assembly's Urban Initiative Program in 2004-06, 2006-08, and 2008-10, and by project grants and gifts.

More about us.