(Note: Substitute the word Thesis for Dissertation when appropriate and change the degree to MASTER OF…) This is a sample of a Title Page.

Title of Dissertation

A Dissertation Presented

by

(YOUR FULL NAME IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS)

Submitted to the Graduate School of the

University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

DEGREE NAME

Month and Year of degree (must match academic record)

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(Note: Substitute the word Thesis for Dissertation when appropriate and change the degree) This is a sample of a Signature page.

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Title of Dissertation

A Dissertation Presented

By

(YOUR NAME IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS)

Approved as to style and content by:

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*Students in the College of Education must submit the page with the signature of the Associate Dean. Students in the Isenberg School of Management must submit the page with the signature of the PhD Program Director. Students in the LLC programs (Chinese, Comparative Literature, French, German, Hispanic Literatures & Linguistics, Japanese) must submit the page with the signature of their Program Director and with the signature of the LLC Department Head/Chair.

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DEDICATION

Dedication text goes here, limit to one page

I would like to thank my advisor, Jane P. Wong, for her many years of thoughtful, patient guidance and support. Thanks, are also due to Frances Keegan. Together their friendship and selfless contribution to my professional development have been invaluable and will forever be appreciated. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the members of my committee, Thomas H. Pickles and Charles M. Waldau, for their helpful comments and suggestions on all stages of this project.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my advisor, Jane P. Wong, for her many years of thoughtful, patient guidance and support. Thanks are also due to Frances Keegan. Together their friendship and selfless contribution to my professional development have been invaluable and will forever be appreciated. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the members of my committee, Thomas H. Pickles and Charles M. Waldau, for their helpful comments and suggestions on all stages of this project.

This is a sample of an Abstract page.

ABSTRACT

TITLE OF MANUSCRIPT

DEGREE DATE MONTH AND YEAR

STUDENT Name, BA, COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY

M.A., COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY

Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

Directed by: (Professor’s Full Name)

Abstract body starts here and should not exceed 350 words.

This is a sample Table of Contents page.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSv
ABSTRACTvi
LIST OF TABLESviii
LIST OF FIGURESix

CHAPTER
I.SOCIAL INTERACTION AND PUBLIC PLACES1
A. Introduction1

B. The decline of the Public Sphere1
1.The Coffeehouse as Exemplar1
a. Coffeehouses in Europe2

II.THE PRIVATE AS PUBLIC23
A. Home, Hearth and Loved Ones25

III.THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF SOCIAL INTERACTION29

A. Selling Friendship33

APPENDICES
A. CRITICAL REVIEWS OF HABERMAS39
B. GENERAL NOTES41

BIBLIOGRAPHY43

This is a sample List of Tables page.

LIST OF TABLES

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LIST OF FIGURES

This is a sample of Chapter 1 pages.

CHAPTER I

SOCIAL INTERACTION AND PUBLIC PLACES

Introduction

Many scholars have explored the decline of the public sphere, citing the increasing privatization of contemporary social life and its subsequent sublimation into consumption. This chapter explores the ways that people's social lives have been constrained by capitalism and suggests that although this is a dominant trend throughout westernized countries, there are countervailing tendencies that should be explored. According to Habermas, if the conditions for the possibility of knowledge are constrained, then the task of the intellectual is to explore what conditions or actions would be necessary to reopen those areas of social life.

B, The Decline of the Public Sphere

In 1990, Habermas argued that the public sphere has been radically transformed by the rise of social institutions such as newspapers, coffeehouses, and reading societies that provided for the formation and articulation of public opinion. However, public opinion came to be assigned specific political responsibilities within liberal democracies. Although historically, they allowed for the rise of a politically active and informed public in Europe, the emergence of the modern social welfare state circumscribed their power such that socioeconomic, political and cultural conditions were radically altered. Public opinion and the public sphere are limited and linked to specific interests as certain people began to control public forums such as the mass media.

I. The Coffeehouse as Exemplar

Before the closing off of the public sphere, certain spaces existed where free discourse and debate took place, where people engaged in real opinion-making about public issues. One arena for critical rational discourse was the coffeehouse. In its earliest formation, the coffeehouse provided people with a respectable reason to get out of the house and spend the evening in the company of others, to be entertained, to see, and be seen. They were comfortable places that encouraged patrons to stay a while. 1 People from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds went to coffeehouses, although evidence suggests that different venues were stratified by class and other social arrangements. In other words, particular coffeehouses catered to specific audiences.

1. Coffeehouses in Europe

The lapsing of the licensing acts of 1652 marked the beginning of coffeehouses in England. In 17th and 18th Century London, coffeehouses were the crossroads of intellectual life. Discussions were led by speakers concerning politics. Literary and scientific debate occurred as people sipped their beverages at small tables across from political and social rivals. In England, the Royal Society used the coffeehouse as a public place in which to spread their ideas about scientific method. The rise of experimentalism and the debates between Hobbes and Boyle owe a great deal to the public forums provided by coffeehouses. The coffeehouse was one of a number of public gathering places in Europe at the time, however it had a particular character that made it the site of intellectual debate. Unlike the salon or dance hall, the coffeehouse was both accessible and reputable.

1. English Coffeehouses as Public Sphere

Known as Penny Universities, the English coffeehouse was a space where dialogue, conversation, questioning, solidarity, and community were enacted on a daily basis. People met without express intent to do business or to create public policy, and yet, in that atmosphere, interactions occurred beyond the realm of technical rationality. Although the coffeehouse was a money-making venture for its owners, its role as public space was more significant than its function as a business.

APPENDIX: GENERAL NOTES

1 Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990), p. 76.

2 The Medieval origins of coffeehouses are discussed in detail in R. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses:The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East (Seattle: Univ. of Washinton Press,1985). Hattox covers the relationship between coffee drinking and religious activity both for Islamic and Sufi practices. Although there are similarities between this use and tribal use in the early Americas, no specific anthropological or historical study has been made connecting the two. For further evidence of this connection, see Schivelbusch, W., Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants. (New York: Pantheon, 1992).

3 Although there are popular images of publicly owned community gathering spots, such as the village common or parks in urban environments, in contemporary society most of the expanding and enduring public places are being created by private corporations rather than the government. For the popularized version of this argument, one can look to any of the materials put out by Starbucks and its corporate founders. It originates in R. Oldenberg's The Great Good Place (New York: Paragon House, 1989). He presents a more accessible and certainly depoliticized version of Habermas' arguments, ending up with a conciliatory and upbeat appraisal of the commercialization of public space and public debate.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Branford, Victor. Interpretations and Forecasts: A Study of Survivals and Tendencies in Contemporary Society. London: Duckworth & Co., 1914.

Branford, Victor and Geddes, Patrick. The Coming Polity. The Making of the Future. London: Williams & Norgate, 1919.

Darwin, Charles Robert. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. 2 vols. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1871.

________. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Preface by Konrad Lorenz. London: D. Appleton, 1872; reprint ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.

________. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Introduction by Ernst Mayr. London: Murray. 1859; facsimile ed., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964.

Geddes, Patrick. Cities in Evolution: An Introduction to the Town Planning Movement and to the Study of Civics. London: Williams & Norgate, 1915; reprint ed., London: Ernest Benn, 1968.

________. Cities in Evolution. Edited by The Outlook Tower Association, Edinburgh, and The Association for Planning and Regional Reconstruction, London. Jaqueline Tyrwhitt, General Editor. London: Williams & Norgate, Ltd., 1949.

________. City Development: A Report to the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust. Introduction by Peter Green. Edinburgh, 1904; reprint ed., New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1973.