Description
Book SynopsisOne of the most troubling aspects of the politics of homelessness, Leonard C. Feldman contends, is the reduction of the homeless to what Hannah Arendt calls "the abstract nakedness of humanity" and what Giorgio Agamben terms "bare life." Feldman...
Trade ReviewCitizens without Shelter traces the development of homelessness policy by analyzing local regulations and their judicial challenges. Leonard Feldman argues that cities and the courts are now criminalizing the very activities that homeless citizens must carry out in order to live. He also explores the changing definitions of 'the public sphere,' 'citizenship,' and 'home' in political philosophy, and how the interaction among these definitions has had an impact on the evolution of homelessness regulations.
* Political Science Quarterly *
Feldman provides a thoughtful and nuanced examination of the cultural messages that undergird the wide range of arguments that structure both national and local debates in the United States over appropriate public responses to homelessness.... This extremely interesting work is highly recommended to anyone interested in the politics of homelessness or, more broadly, in the development of the 'frames' that both organize and become the grounds for contestation in public policy debates.
-- D. R. Imig, University of Memphis * Choice *
In Citizens without Shelter, Leonard Feldman writes about homelessness and about those who write about the homeless.... He argues—correctly, I believe—that the homeless typically are excluded from democratic politics.
-- Mark Carl Rom, Georgetown University * Perspectives on Political Science *
