Public Arenas of the Humanities : The Circulation of Knowledge in the Postwar Period

The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how a new history of thepostwar humanities could be written. Drawing on approaches from thehistory of knowledge, it outlines the conditions of the circulation ofknowledge in the public sphere during the 1960s and 1970s. By introducing“public arena of knowledge” as an analytical concept, the authors highlightcertain media platforms where circulation of knowledge occurred. As theirempirical examples, they focus on paperback series and the Christianpublic sphere. All in all, the chapter underlines the importance of thehumanities for a wider circulation of knowledge and thereby challengesa crisis narrative of the humanities of the postwar period that is prevalentin established historiography