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Instructors: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ruth Zimmerling
Event type:
Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
Sem Free Speech
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 30
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
This seminar is taught in English!
Areas: Political Theory
Valid for:
- MA European Studies (Mod. 4: Sem. European Political Philosophy)
- Erasmus incomings welcome!
- other study programmes: Please see the German version of these informations
Contents:
That freedom of speech is an essential, necessary feature of democratic systems seems to be very widely agreed. However, what has been and still is very much debated is the extension of that freedom. A large part of this debate has been between European and US-American scholars:
While the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution tends to be interpreted as a rigorous prohibition of any restriction to speech, European legal systems tend to contain provisions enabling public agents to prohibit certain types of speech, and to sanction the violation of such prohibitions, This concerns, e. g., so-called "hate speech" and, particularly in Germany, the denial of the holocaust.
In the seminar, we will analyze and discuss the different arguments brought forward on both sides of the debate. For instance, is it convincing when some say that hate speech must be countered with "more speech", not with prohibitions? Or that having to endure insulting speech from time to time is the "price" we should be willing to pay for democratic freedom? Or, on the other side, that "hate speech" and similar ways of speech violates the basic democratic tenet that ALL citizens have an equal standing in the public sphere in an untolerable, denigrating way?
It will also be interesting to investigate the legal situation voncerning freeom of speech in differentn EU member states such as France, Germany, and Poland.
Recommended reading list:
Introductory references:
Garton Ash, Timothy 2016, Free Soeech: Ten Principles for a Connected World, London: Atlantic Books. (Kindle ed. 9,95). (See also a critical review essay to this book: David Luban, Say What You Will?, The New York Review of Books LXIII: 14, 36-40.)
Hare, Ivan, and James Weinsteind (eds.) 2010, Free Speech and Democracy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
An extended reading list and information on required seminar readings will be uploaded on "Reader" before the beginning of the summer term.
Additional information:
Term papers for this semiinar can be submitted in English or German!
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