This course considers the formation of publics and public intellectuals, according to some leading theorists. We will examine the nature of a public, its constitution and elaboration through shared texts, private reading, public interventions, media and social networks. Participants will be encouraged to look critically at assumptions about public vs. private, author vs. reader, and producer vs. consumer, as we think about how autonomy and a critical stance toward power could be forged in historical contexts and in the contemporary globalized world of social networks. We will talk about how filiation and affiliation work, consider the way citizenship and membership in a community are constituted, and ask what publics might mean for the past and future of democracy. Readings will include selections from Jurgen Habermas, Nancy Fraser, Edward Said, Michael Warner, Ethan Zuckerman, and Yascha Mounk, as well as from Samuel Richardson, Laurence Sterne, Walt Whitman, George Orwell, Russian futurists, and neo-futurists, and others.