Television and Precarity Naturalist Narratives of Poor America

Jasmin Humburg provides evidence of naturalist narrative strategies, tropes, and character variations in six contemporary American television series: The Wire, Tremé, Shameless, Ozark, Orange is the New Black and 2 Broke Girls.

Jasmin Humburg provides evidence of naturalist narrative strategies, tropes, and character variations in six contemporary American television series: The Wire, Tremé, Shameless, Ozark, Orange is the New Black and 2 Broke Girls. The author investigates how poverty is negotiated through classic literary naturalism and contemporary televisual articulations, and how the latter may have been influenced by the former in the age of the Great Recession. By connecting literary studies, television studies, and concepts of social mobility, this project contributes to the field of new poverty studies.
Contents

• Theorizing Representations of Poverty
• Exploring Determinism
• Infiltrating the Culture of Poverty
• Embodying the Plot of Decline

Target Groups

• Academics and students of American Studies, Literary Studies, Cultural Studies, Social Science
• Producers of television series, screenwriters, authors, media educators

The Author
Jasmin Humburg earned her doctorate in American Studies from Universität Hamburg. She currently works as a translator, lecturer, and literary critic.

Jasmin Humburg provides evidence of naturalist narrative strategies, tropes, and character variations in six contemporary American television series: The Wire, Tremé, Shameless, Ozark, Orange is the New Black and 2 Broke Girls. The author investigates how poverty is negotiated through classic literary naturalism and contemporary televisual articulations, and how the latter may have been influenced by the former in the age of the Great Recession. By connecting literary studies, television studies, and concepts of social mobility, this project contributes to the field of new poverty studies.