FRIAS Kolloquium - Maria Sulimma

“Dog parks are for people”: Canine-Gentrifier Cohabitation in Contemporary Literature

The dog park and the over-burdened dog walker are a staple setting and character respectively in stories about the city. However, in the gentrifying city, consumer practices, leisure activities, and commercial and public spaces associated with dog ownership have specialized and spread: this talk explores literary representations of human-dog relationships, for example in Eileen Myles’ Afterglow (2017), Sigrid Nunez’ The Friend (2018), and Jen Beagin’s Big Swiss (2023). It considers the ambiguous role of dogs in the transforming urban environment, as members of what Laurent-Simpson calls the “multispecies family,” and at the same time as symbols of privileged lifestyles and entitlement of their owners/dog parents.

Maria Sulimma is Juniorprofessor of North American Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Freiburg. She is the author of Gender and Seriality: Practices and Politics of Contemporary US Television (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) and co-editor of City Scripts: Narratives of Postindustrial Urban Futures (Ohio State University Press , 2023). Her recent work is on storytelling and gentrification.