Passing: Identity and Interpretation in Sexuality, Race, and Religion

by Maria C. Sanchez (Editor), Linda Schlossberg (Editor)

Overview

Passing for what you are not—whether it is mulattos passing as white, Jews passing as Christian, or drag queens passing as women—can be a method of protection or self-defense. But it can also be a uniquely pleasurable experience, one that trades on the erotics of secrecy and revelation. It is precisely passing's radical playfulness, the way it asks us to reconsider our assumptions and forces our most cherished fantasies of identity to self-destruct, that is centrally addressed in Passing: Identity and Interpretation in Sexuality, Race, and Religion.
Identity in Western culture is largely structured around visibility, whether in the service of science (Victorian physiognomy), psychoanalysis (Lacan's mirror stage), or philosophy (the Panopticon). As such, it is charged with anxieties regarding classification and social demarcation. Passing wreaks havoc with accepted systems of social recognition and cultural intelligibility, blurring the carefully-marked lines of race, gender, and class.
Bringing together theories of passing across a host of disciplines—from critical race theory and lesbian and gay studies, to literary theory and religious studies—Passing complicates our current understanding of the visual and categories of identity.
Contributors: Michael Bronski, Karen McCarthy Brown, Bradley Epps, Judith Halberstam, Peter Hitchcock, Daniel Itzkovitz, Patrick O'Malley, Miriam Peskowitz, María C. Sánchez Linda Schlossberg, and Sharon Ullman.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814781234
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	08/01/2001
Series:	Sexual Cultures , #29
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	283
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Maria C. Sanchez is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University.

Linda Schlossberg is Lecturer and Assistant Director of Studies for the Women's Studies Program at Harvard University.

Table of Contents

	Introduction: Rites of Passing	1
1	Telling Tales: Brandon Teena, Billy Tipton, and Transgender Biography	13
2	Passing Like Me: Jewish Chameleonism and the Politics of Race	38
3	Whiteness Invisible: Early Mexican American Writing and the Color of Literary History	64
4	Passing Lines: Immigration and the Performance of American Identity	92
5	From Victorian Parlor to Physique Pictorial: The Male Nude and Homosexual Identity	135
6	Slumming	160
7	The "Self-Made Man": Male Impersonation and the New Woman	187
8	Mimesis in the Face of Fear: Femme Queens, Butch Queens, and Gender Play in the Houses of Greater Newark	208
9	"The Church's Closet": Confessionals, Victorian Catholicism, and the Crisis of Identification	228
10	Moses' Wilderness Tabernacle	260
	Contributors	273

Editorial Reviews

"Passing is a very useful contribution to the literature both on sexualities and the politics of identity generally...the analyses in Passing throw light not only on minority identities but also on more mainstream ones."

Sexualities 6(1)

"Wigs, men's suits, and shocking posthumous disclosures: such are some stereotypical elements of passing lives. But this rich and stimulating collection maps a more varied territory of passing—with its invisible differences, sly performances, and ‘chameleonic blood,' its compelled betrayals, fears of infiltration, and deeply desired poses. Passing details the terrors of such border crossings and the threats they pose to ways of knowing, indeed to identity itself."

Carolyn Dinshaw

"Wigs, men's suits, and shocking posthumous disclosures: such are some stereotypical elements of passing lives. But this rich and stimulating collection maps a more varied territory of passing—with its invisible differences, sly performances, and ‘chameleonic blood,' its compelled betrayals, fears of infiltration, and deeply desired poses. Passing details the terrors of such border crossings and the threats they pose to ways of knowing, indeed to identity itself."

-Carolyn Dinshaw,Director of The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at NYU

"In Passing: Identity and Interpretations in Sexuality, Race, and Religion, editors Maria Carla Sanchez and Linda Schlossberg have assembled relevant cultural criticism by 10 scholars."

- Publishers Weekly

"Passing is a very useful contribution to the literature both on sexualities and the politics of identity generally...the analyses in Passing throw light not only on minority identities but also on more mainstream ones."

- Sexualities 6(1)

From the Publisher

"In Passing: Identity and Interpretations in Sexuality, Race, and Religion, editors Maria Carla Sanchez and Linda Schlossberg have assembled relevant cultural criticism by 10 scholars."

Publishers Weekly