On May 2, 2024, we are welcoming Jun.-Prof. Maria Sulimma in Eichstätt. She will hold a guest lecture and teach a workshop for our fellows. The guest lecture will take place in room O17-011 at the KU Eichstätt from 4 to 6 pm. You can also access it remotely! Please see the link below for this.
Jun.-Prof. Sulimma is an American Studies scholar working in the intersecting areas of literary and cultural studies, urban studies, and feminist media studies. Please find the abstract for her talk below:
One inherent dimension of gentrification is the competition between social groups and individual actors for dominance over urban space and its resources, a societal conflict that finds frequent depiction in contemporary literature. Contributing to the fields of Literary Studies, American Studies, and Urban Studies, this talk identifies a narrative phenomenon related to storytelling about and imaginings of neoliberal capitalist privatization, globalization, and displacement: the evocation of seemingly trivial leisure activities or places tied to the consumption of characters as embodiments of gentrification. Examples of such practices and the conflictual places of consumption associated with them are coffee drinking (the café), gardening (the urban garden), or dog-walking (the dogpark). These leisure practices inherently shed light on debates revolving around racial displacement, class, and wealth distribution in the United States and other countries. They enable the connection of literary and urban forms, but often remain incidental activities associated with urban life in storytelling while referencing the conflicts associated with displacement and changing neighborhoods.
The lecture will be livestreamed on Zoom. If you would like to join, please use this link:
Meeting-ID: 661 6070 8994
Kenncode: 452356