Wibke Schniedermann

Narrating Homelessness Between Mobility and Domesticity: Roads, Streets, Tunnels (englischsprachig)

The current homelessness emergency in the US is one of the most persistent social crises of the twenty-first century. This talk turns to the discursive and affective meanings with which American culture invests the social reality of homelessness. The meanings, connotations, and images of “being homeless” do not reflect the current reality but are rooted in a century and a half of telling stories about unhoused lives—stories that began to sentimentalize, victimize, or heroize the homeless long ago. Many of these stories negotiate between two fundamental American values, mobility and domesticity. We will consider examples from different media to discuss how such stories position their homeless characters within the domesticity-mobility continuum. These positions correspond to three topographic and architectural spaces within which American narratives of homelessness place their characters: roads, streets, and tunnels. Each topography is defined by the specific tension it generates between mobility and domesticity.

Wibke Schniedermann ist Gastprofessorin für anglophone Literatur an der Universität Gent. In ihrer Habilitationsschrift in amerikanischer Literatur-, Kutlur- und Medienwisssenschaft  (Universität Gießen, 2025) beschäftigt sie sich mit Erzählungen von Obdachlosigkeit in der US-amerikanischen Kultur vom späten 19. bis ins 21. Jahrhundert. Im Vordergund stehen dabei insbesondere Erzählformen, die entweder dazu beitragen, die strukturellen Ursachen und Realitäten von Wohnungslosigkeit zu verschleiern oder denen es gelingt, die relationalen Verstrickungen von Armut und Marginalisierung zu behandeln.