In this introductory article to the thematic cluster Literature and the Public Sphere, we briefly outline the adapting of the concept of a “public sphere” offered by Jürgen Habermas to the humanities and social sciences. It was adapted during the early 1990s because of heated international discussions, debates, and a partial shift away from Habermas's original specific meaning. Whereas other academic disciplines soon began to use this concept actively, literary studies accepted it gradually and cautiously. We endorse an understanding of the public sphere based on American debates of the early 1990s as a social space of symbolic negotiations. The articles in this cluster in one way or another touch upon this concept as viewed from this perspective.