Mixed Desis: Stories of Multiracial South Asians

Posted in Anthologies, Asian Diaspora, Autobiography, Books, Media Archive on 2024-06-13 21:25Z by Steven

Mixed Desis: Stories of Multiracial South Asians

HumSub Global
2024-02-12
176 pages
6 x 0.4 x 9 inches
ISBN-13: 979-8989630202

Rahul Arjun John Yates
Punita Khanna

Embark on an inspiring journey through the captivating narratives of “Mixed Desis,” a book creating community for and gathering the voices of mixed-race individuals, interracial families, and multiracial family researchers. Within these pages, you’ll find the heartfelt stories of trailblazers who dared to defy convention in their pursuit of love and life.

Listen to this community of brave, vulnerable, and perceptive multiracial South Asians as they share their journeys toward happiness, balance, and self-actualization.

Join us in celebrating the resilience, love, and strength of these remarkable individuals. Purchase “Mixed Desis” today and empower yourself with knowledge, empathy, and a deeper connection to the vibrant tapestry of human experience. Your journey to understanding and unity begins here.

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Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Nella Larsen

Posted in Anthologies, Books, Gay & Lesbian, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, Passing, United States, Women on 2022-09-07 22:37Z by Steven

Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Nella Larsen

Modern Language Association
2016-09-01
2010 pages
6 x 0.7 x 9.1 inches
Hardcover ISBN: 9781603292191
Paperback ISBN: 9781603292207

Edited by:

Jacquelyn Y. McLendon, Professor Emerita of English & Africana Studies; Director Emerita of Black Studies
College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia

Nella Larsen’s novels Quicksand and Passing, published at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, fell out of print and were thus little known for many years. Now widely available and taught, Quicksand and Passing challenge conventional “tragic mulatta” and “passing” narratives. In part 1, “Materials,” of Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Nella Larsen, the editor surveys the canon of Larsen’s writing, evaluates editions of her works, recommends secondary readings, and compiles a list of useful multimedia resources for teaching.

The essays in part 2, “Approaches,” aim to help students better understand attitudes toward women and race during the Harlem Renaissance, the novels’ relations to other artistic movements, and legal debates over racial identities in the early twentieth century. In so doing, contributors demonstrate how new and seasoned instructors alike might use Larsen’s novels to explore a wide range of topics—including Larsen’s short stories and letters, the relation between her writings and her biography, and the novels’ discussion of gender and sexuality.

Contents

  • Acknowledgments
  • PART ONE: MATERIALS / Jacquelyn Y. McLendon
  • PART TWO: APPROACHES
    • Introduction / Jacquelyn Y. McLendon
    • Historical and Cultural Contexts
      • Nella Larsen’s Passing and the Literary and Legal Context of the Passing Narrative / Martha J. Cutter
      • Nella Larsen’s Modernism / Caresse John
      • Helga Crane in West Egg: Reading Quicksand and The Great Gatsby as a Case Study in Canonicity / Shealeen Meaney
      • “A Whole World of Experience and Struggle”: Teaching Literature as Cultural and Intellectual Women’s History / Lyde Sizer
      • Nightlife and Racial Learning in Quicksand / Clark Barwick
    • Fiction and the Arts
      • Sounding and Being: A Resource for Teaching Musical References and Symbolism in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand / Gayle Murchison
      • Nella Larsen and the Racial Mountain: Teaching Black Musical Aesthetics in Passing and Quicksand / Lori Harrison-Kahan
      • Nella Larsen and the Civilization of Images: Teaching Primitivism and Expressionism in Quicksand / Cristina Giorcelli
    • Identity
      • “Anything Might Happen”: Freedom and American Identity in Nella Larsen’s Passing / Beryl Satter
      • Teaching Passing as a Lesbian Text / Suzanne Raitt
      • Approaching Gender in Quicksand / Beth Widmaier Capo
      • From “My Old Man” to Race Men in Quicksand / Riché Richardson
    • In the Classroom: Methods, Courses, Settings
      • The Matter of Beginnings: Teaching the Opening Paragraphs in Quicksand and Passing / Steven B. Shively
      • Versions of Passing / John K. Young
      • The Uses of Biography / George B. Hutchinson
      • “In Some . . . Determined Way a Little Flaunting”: Teaching with Nella Larsen’s Letters / M. Giulia Fabi and Jacquelyn Y. McLendon
      • Teaching Quicksand in Denmark / Martyn Bone
      • Teaching Nella Larsen’s Passing at an Urban Community College / Zivah Perel Katz
  • Notes on Contributors
  • Survey Participants
  • Works Cited
  • Index
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The Portable Anna Julia Cooper

Posted in Anthologies, Autobiography, Biography, Books, Media Archive, Social Justice, United States, Women on 2022-08-25 01:04Z by Steven

The Portable Anna Julia Cooper

Penguin Classics (an imprint of Penguin Random House)
2022-08-09
592 pages
5-1/16 x 7-3/4
Paperback ISBN: 9780143135067
Ebook ISBN: 9780525506713
Audiobook ISBN: 9780593457993

Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964)

Edited by:

Shirley Moody-Turner, Associate Professor of English and African American Studies
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania

A collection of essential writings from the iconic foremother of Black women’s intellectual history, feminism, and activism, who helped pave the way for modern social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and Say Her Name

The Portable Anna Julia Cooper brings together, for the first time, Anna Julia Cooper’s major collection of essays, A Voice from the South, along with several previously unpublished poems, plays, journalism and selected correspondences, including over thirty previously unpublished letters between Anna Julia Cooper and W. E. B. Du Bois. The Portable Anna Julia Cooper will introduce a new generation of readers to an educator, public intellectual, and community activist whose prescient insights and eloquent prose underlie some of the most important developments in modern American intellectual thought and African American social and political activism.

Recognized as the iconic foremother of Black women’s intellectual history and activism, Cooper (1858-1964) penned one of the most forceful and enduring statements of Black feminist thought to come of out of the nineteenth century. Attention to her work has grown exponentially over the years–her words have been memorialized in the US passport and, in 2009, she was commemorated with a US postal stamp. Cooper’s writings on the centrality of Black girls and women to our larger national discourse has proved especially prescient in this moment of Black Lives Matter, Say Her Name, and the recent protests that have shaken the nation.

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Mana Tangatarua: Mixed heritages, ethnic identity and biculturalism in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Posted in Anthologies, Anthropology, Asian Diaspora, Books, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Oceania, Politics/Public Policy, Social Science on 2022-05-13 17:17Z by Steven

Mana Tangatarua: Mixed heritages, ethnic identity and biculturalism in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Routledge
2017-11-16
236 Pages
14 B/W Illustrations
Hardcover ISBN: 9781138233362
Paperback ISBN: 9780367885304
eBook ISBN: 9781315309811

Edited By:

Zarine L. Rocha, Affiliated Researcher
Department of Sociology
National University of Singapore, Singapore

Melinda Webber, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education and Social Work
University of Auckland

This volume explores mixed race/mixed ethnic identities in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Mixed race and mixed ethnic identity are growing in popularity as research topics around the world. This edited collection looks at mixed race and mixed ethnic identity in New Zealand: a unique context, as multiple ethnic identities have been officially recognised for more than 30 years.

The book draws upon research across a range of disciplines, exploring the historical and contemporary ways in which official and social understandings of mixed race and ethnicity have changed. It focuses on the interactions between race, ethnicity, national identity, indigeneity and culture, especially in terms of visibility and self-defined identity in the New Zealand context.

Mana Tangatarua situates New Zealand in the existing international scholarship, positioning experiences from New Zealand within theoretical understandings of mixedness. The chapters develop wider theories of mixed race and mixed ethnic identity, at macro and micro levels, looking at the interconnections between the two. The volume as a whole reveals the diverse ways in which mixed race is experienced and understood, providing a key contribution to the theory and development of mixed race globally.

Table of Contents

  • Foreword Paul Spoonley
  • Introduction: Situating mixed race in New Zealand and the world. Zarine L. Rocha and Melinda Webber
  • Section one: Mixedness and classifications across generations
    • Chapter One: A history of mixed race in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Zarine L. Rocha and Angela Wanhalla
    • Chapter Two: Reflections of identity: ethnicity, ethnic recording and ethnic mobility. Robert Didham
    • Chapter Three: Is ethnicity all in the family? How parents in Aotearoa New Zealand identify their children. Polly Atatoa Carr, Tahu Kukutai, Dinusha Bandara and Patrick Broman
    • Chapter Four: Lives at the intersections: multiple ethnicities and child protection. Emily Keddell
  • Section two: Mixed identifications, indigeneity and biculturalism
    • Chapter Five: Raranga Wha: Mana whenua, mana moana and mixedness in one Māori/Fijian/Samoan/Pākehā whānau. Rae Si‘ilata
    • Chapter Six: Beyond Appearances: Mixed ethnic and cultural identities among biliterate Japanese-European New Zealander young adults. Kaya Oriyama
    • Chapter Seven: Love and Politics: Rethinking Biculturalism and Multiculturalism in Aotearoa-New Zealand. Lincoln I. Dam
    • Chapter Eight: Māori and Pākehā encounters of difference – the realisation that we’re not the same. Karyn Paringatai
  • Section three: Mixing the majority/Pākehā identity
    • Chapter Nine: Multidimensional intersections: the merging and emerging of complex European settler identities. Robert Didham, Paul Callister and Geoff Chambers
    • Chapter Ten: Hauntology and Pākehā: disrupting the notion of homogeneity. Esther Fitzpatrick
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Métis Rising: Living Our Present Through the Power of Our Past

Posted in Anthologies, Books, Canada, Economics, History, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, Social Science on 2022-05-09 14:24Z by Steven

Métis Rising: Living Our Present Through the Power of Our Past

University of British Columbia Press
2022-04-30
280 pages
6 x 9
3 b&w illus., 2 maps, 8 charts, 3 tables
Hardcover ISBN: 9780774880749

Yvonne Boyer and Larry Chartrand

Métis Rising draws on a remarkable cross-section of perspectives to tell the histories, stories, and dreams of people from varied backgrounds, demonstrating that there is no single Métis experience – only a common sense of belonging and a commitment to justice.

The contributors to this unique collection, most of whom are Métis themselves, examine often-neglected aspects of Métis existence in Canada. They trace a turbulent course, illustrating how Métis leaders were born out of the need to address abhorrent social and economic disparities following the Métis–Canadian war of 1885. They talk about the long and arduous journey to rebuild the Métis nation from a once marginalized and defeated people; their accounts ranging from personal reflections on identity to tales of advocacy against poverty and poor housing. And they address the indictment of the jurisdictional gap whereby neither federal nor provincial governments would accept governance responsibility towards Métis people.

Métis Rising is an extraordinary work that exemplifies how contemporary Métis identity has been forged by social, economic, and political concerns into a force to be reckoned with.

A must-read not only for scholars and students of Métis and Indigenous studies but for lawyers, policymakers, and all Canadians who wish a broader understanding of this country’s colonial past.

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Mixed-Race Superheroes

Posted in Anthologies, Books, Communications/Media Studies, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, United States on 2022-02-24 20:50Z by Steven

Mixed-Race Superheroes

Rutgers University Press
2022-04-16
288 pages
24 color images
6 x 9
Paperback ISBN: 9781978814592
Cloth ISBN: 9781978814608
EPUB ISBN: 9781978814615
PDF ISBN: 9781978814639
Kindle ISBN: 9781978814622

Edited by:

Sika A. Dagbovie-Mullins, Associate Professor of English
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton

Eric L. Berlatsky, Associate Professor of English
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton

American culture has long represented mixed-race identity in paradoxical terms. On the one hand, it has been associated with weakness, abnormality, impurity, transgression, shame, and various pathologies; however, it can also connote genetic superiority, exceptional beauty, and special potentiality. This ambivalence has found its way into superhero media, which runs the gamut from Ant-Man and the Wasp’s tragic mulatta villain Ghost to the cinematic depiction of Aquaman as a heroic “half-breed.”

The essays in this collection contend with the multitude of ways that racial mixedness has been presented in superhero comics, films, television, and literature. They explore how superhero media positions mixed-race characters within a genre that has historically privileged racial purity and propagated images of white supremacy. The book considers such iconic heroes as Superman, Spider-Man, and The Hulk, alongside such lesser-studied characters as Valkyrie, Dr. Fate, and Steven Universe. Examining both literal and symbolic representations of racial mixing, this study interrogates how we might challenge and rewrite stereotypical narratives about mixed-race identity, both in superhero media and beyond.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction by Sika A. Dagbovie-Mullins and Eric L. Berlatsky
  • Part I Superheroes in Black and White
    • 1. Guess Who’s Coming Home? Mixed Metaphors of Home in Spider-Man’s Comic and Cinematic Homecomings by Sika A. Dagbovie-Mullins
    • 2. The Ride of the Valkyrie Against White Supremacy: Tessa Thompson’s Casting in Thor: Ragnarok by Jasmine Mitchell
    • 3. “Which World Would You Rather Live In?” The Anti-utopian Superheroes of Gary Jackson’s Poetry by Chris Gavaler
    • 4. Flash of Two Races: Incest, Miscegenation, and the Mixed-Race Superhero in The Flash Comics and Television Show by Eric L. Berlatsky
  • Part II Metaphors of/and Mixedness
    • 5. “Let Yourself Just Be Whoever You Are!” Decolonial Hybridity and the Queer Cosmic Future in Steven Universe by Corrine E. Collins
    • 6. The Hulk and Venom: Warring Blood Superheroes by Gregory T. Carter
    • 7. Monsters, Mutants, and Mongrels: The Mixed-Race Hero in Monstress by Chris Koenig-Woodyard
    • 8. Examining Otherness and the Marginal Man in DC’s Superman through Mixed-Race Studies by Kwasu David Tembo
  • Part III Multiethnic Mixedness (or Mixed-Race Intersections)
    • 9. Talented Tensions and Revisions: The Narrative Double Consciousness of Miles Morales by Jorge J. Santos Jr.
    • 10. “They’re Two People in One Body”: Nested Sovereignties and Mixed-Race Mutations in FX’s Legion by Nicholas E. Miller
    • 11. Into to the Spider-Verse and the Commodified (Re)imagining of Afro-Rican Visibility by Isabel Molina-Guzmán
    • 12. Truth, Justice, and the (Ancient) Egyptian Way: DC’s Doctor Fate and the Arab Spring by Adrienne Resha
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes on Contributors
  • Index
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Preparing for Higher Education’s Mixed Race Future: Why Multiraciality Matters

Posted in Anthologies, Books, Campus Life, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Justice, Teaching Resources, United States on 2022-02-13 03:48Z by Steven

Preparing for Higher Education’s Mixed Race Future: Why Multiraciality Matters

Palgrave Macmillan
2022-02-09
237 pages
5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)
Hardcover ISBN: 9783030888206
eBook ISBN: ISBN: 978-3-030-88821-3

Edited by:

Marc P. Johnston-Guerrero, Associate Chair of the Department of Educational Studies; Associate Professor in the Higher Education and Student Affairs
Ohio State University

Lisa Delacruz Combs, Ph.D. Candidate
The Ohio State University

Victoria K. Malaney-Brown, Director of Academic Integrity
Columbia University

  • Traces a multiracial trajectory to and through higher education – from pre-college adolescents to post-tenure faculty
  • Complicates common constructs within higher education by examining them through a mixed race lens
  • Critically advances multiraciality in alignment with larger anti-racist and social justice efforts

Increasing attention and representation of multiraciality in both the scholarly literature and popular culture warrants further nuancing of what is understood about multiracial people, particularly in the changing contexts of higher education. This book offers a way of Preparing Higher Education for its Mixed Race Future by examining Why Multiraciality Matters. In preparation, the book highlights recent contributions in scholarship – both empirical studies and scholarly syntheses – on multiracial students, staff, and faculty/scholars across three separate yet interrelated parts, which will help spur the continued evolution of multiraciality into the future.

Table of Contents

  • Section I: Foundations of Multiracial Difference
    • Chapter 1. Coming of Age: Why Multiracial Adolescence Matters for Higher Education
    • Chapter 2. College Enrollment and Multiracial Backgrounds: An Exploration of Access and Choice
    • Chapter 3. Operationalizing Multiracial Consciousness: Disrupting Monoracism at a Historically White Institution
  • Section II: Complex Identities Nuancing Multiraciality
    • Chapter 4. The “Hot Ho” and the Unwanted, Colored Male: Gendered Multiracial Subjectivities Hailed through Contemporary Racial Discourse
    • Chapter 5. In Pursuit of a Leadership Identity: Exploring the Role of Involvement in Cultivating a Multiracial Identity at a Hispanic Serving Institution
    • Chapter 6. The Complexity of Black Biracial Identity within the Contexts of Peer and Student Service Interactions at a Predominately White Institution
    • Chapter 7. I am Black and …: Complexities of Being a Marginalized Multiracial Higher Education Professional in Times of Heightened Racial Tensions
    • Chapter 8. Are We Enough? Exploring Multiracial Staff Identities through the Narratives of Mixed Filipinx Americans
  • Section III: Nuancing Multiracial Engagement and Outcomes
    • Chapter 9. Sense of Belonging for Multiracial and Multiethnic College Students
    • Chapter 10. “Campus Feels Different to Me”: Comparing Climate Experiences of White vs. Non-White Multiracial College Students
    • Chapter 11. Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t: The Trials and Tribulations of Multiracial Student Activism
    • Chapter 12. Pedestaled or Pigeonholed? Multiracial Scholars Traversing Monoracial Academia
    • Chapter 13. Conclusion: What Difference Does Multiraciality Make? Reflections and Future Directions
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Louisiana Creole Peoplehood: Afro-Indigeneity and Community

Posted in Anthologies, Anthropology, Autobiography, Books, History, Louisiana, Media Archive, Native Americans/First Nation, United States on 2022-02-04 03:42Z by Steven

Louisiana Creole Peoplehood: Afro-Indigeneity and Community

University of Washington Press
December 2021
304 pages
4 b&w illustrations
6 x 9 in.
Hardcover ISBN: 9780295749488
Paperback ISBN: 9780295749495

Edited by:

Rain Prud’homme-Cranford, Assistant professor of English and International Indigenous Studies
University of Calgary

Darryl Barthé, Visiting professor of History
Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire

Andrew J. Jolivétte, Professor of Ethnic Studies
University of California, San Diego

Over the course of more than three centuries, the diverse communities of Louisiana have engaged in creative living practices to forge a vibrant, multifaceted, and fully developed Creole culture. Against the backdrop of ongoing anti-Blackness and Indigenous erasure that has sought to undermine this rich culture, Louisiana Creoles have found transformative ways to uphold solidarity, kinship, and continuity, retaking Louisiana Creole agency as a post-contact Afro-Indigenous culture. Engaging themes as varied as foodways, queer identity, health, historical trauma, language revitalization, and diaspora, Louisiana Creole Peoplehood explores vital ways a specific Afro-Indigenous community asserts agency while promoting cultural sustainability, communal dialogue, and community reciprocity.

With interviews, essays, and autobiographic contributions from community members and scholars, Louisiana Creole Peoplehood tracks the sacred interweaving of land and identity alongside the legacies and genealogies of Creole resistance to bring into focus the Afro-Indigenous people who have been negated and written out of settler governmental policy. In doing so, this collection intervenes against the erasure of Creole Indigeneity to foreground Black/Indian cultural sustainability, agency, and self-determination.

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Beyoncé in the World: Making Meaning with Queen Bey in Troubled Times

Posted in Anthologies, Arts, Books, Communications/Media Studies, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2021-10-01 15:45Z by Steven

Beyoncé in the World: Making Meaning with Queen Bey in Troubled Times

Wesleyan University Press
2021-06-08
392 pages
31 color photos
Hardback ISBN: 9780819579911
Paperback ISBN: 9780819579928
eBook ISBN: 9780819579935

Edited by:

Christina Baade, Professor, Communication Studies & Media Arts
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Kristin A. McGee, Associate Professor of Popular Music
University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands

Essays investigate Beyoncé’s global impact

From Destiny’s Child to Lemonade, Homecoming, and The Gift, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has redefined global stardom, feminism, Black representation, and celebrity activism. This book brings together new work from sixteen international scholars to explore Beyonce’s impact as an artist and public figure from the perspectives of critical race studies, gender and women’s studies, queer and cultural studies, music, and fan studies. The authors explore Beyoncé’s musical persona as one that builds upon the lineages of Black female cool, Black southern culture, and Black feminist cultural production. They explore Beyoncé’s reception within and beyond North America, including how a range of performers—from YouTube gospel singers to Brazilian pop artists have drawn inspiration from her performances and image. The authors show how Beyoncé’s music is a source of healing and kinship for many fans, particularly Black women and queer communities of color. Combining cutting edge research, vivid examples, and accessible writing, this collection provides multiple lenses onto the significance of Beyoncé in the United States and around the world.

Table of Contents

  • Foreword / Janell Hobson
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction: Beyoncé Studies / Christina Baade, Marquita Smith, and Kristin McGee
  • Part One “Diva” / Black Feminist Genealogies
    • 1. “I Came to Slay”: The Knowles Sisters, Black Feminism, and the Lineage of Black Female Cool / H. Zahra Caldwell
    • 2. From Colorism to Conjurings: Tracing the Dust in Beyoncé’s Lemonade / Cienna Davis
  • Part Two “Formation” / A Southern Turn
    • 3. Beyoncé’s South and a “Formation” Nation / Riché Richardson
    • 4. Merging Past and Present in Lemonade’s Black Feminist Utopia / J. Brendan Shaw
  • Part Three “XO” / Faith and Fandom
    • 5. At the Digital Cross(roads) with Beyoncé: Gospel Covers That Remix the Risqué into the Religious / Birgitta J. Johnson
    • 6. “She Made Me Understand”: How Lemonade Raised the Intersectional Consciousness of Beyoncé’s International Fans / Rebecca J. Sheehan
  • Part Four “Worldwide Woman” / Beyoncé’s Reception Beyond the United States
    • 7. The Performative Negotiations of Beyoncé in Brazilian Bodies and the Construction of the Pop Diva in Ludmilla’s Funk Carioca and Gaby Amarantos’s Tecnobrega / Simone Pereira de Sá and Thiago Soares
    • 8. A Critical Analysis of White Ignorance Within Beyoncé’s Online Reception in the Spanish Context / Elena Herrera Quintana
  • Part Five “Hold up” / Performing Femme Affinity and Dissent
    • 9. Six-Inch Heels and Queer Black Femmes: Beyoncé and Black Trans Women / Jared Mackley-Crump and Kirsten Zemke
    • 10. From “Say My Name” to “Texas Bamma”: Transgressive Topoi, Oppositional Optics, and Sonic Subversion in Beyoncé’s “Formation” / Byron B Craig and Stephen E. Rahko
  • Part Six “Freedom” / Sounding Protest, Hearing Politics
    • 11. Musical Form in Beyoncé’s Protest Music / Annelot Prins and Taylor Myers
    • 12. Beyoncé’s Black Feminist Critique: Multimodal Intertextuality and Intersectionality in “Sorry” / Rebekah Hutten and Lori Burns
  • Part Seven “Pray You Catch Me” / Healing and Community
    • 13. Beyond “Becky with the Good Hair”: Hair and Beauty in Beyoncé’s “Sorry” / Kristin Denise Rowe
    • 14. The Livable, Surviving, and Healing Poetics of Lemonade: A Black Feminist Futurity in Action / Mary Senyonga
  • About the Contributors
  • Index
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Erasure and Recollection: Memories of Racial Passing

Posted in Anthologies, Book/Video Reviews, Caribbean/Latin America, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Louisiana, Media Archive, Passing, United States on 2021-09-29 01:09Z by Steven

Erasure and Recollection: Memories of Racial Passing

Peter Lang
September 2021
366 pages
13 fig. b/w.
Paperback ISBN:978-2-8076-1625-7
ePUB ISBN:978-2-8076-1627-1 (DOI: 10.3726/b18256)

Edited by:

Hélène Charlery, Professor of English Literature
University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, Toulouse, France

Aurélie Guillain, Professor of American Literature
University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, Toulouse, France

Many recent studies of racial passing have emphasized the continuing, almost haunting power of racial segregation even in the post-segregation period in the US, or in the post-apartheid period in South Africa. This “present-ness” of racial passing, the fact that it has not really become “passé,” is noticeable in the great number of testimonies which have been published in the 2000s and 2010s by descendants of individuals who passed for white in the English-speaking world. The sheer number of publications suggest a continuing interest in the kind of relation to the personal and national past which is at stake in the long-delayed revelation of cases of racial passing.

This interest in family memoirs or in fictional works re-tracing the erasure of some relative’s racial identity is by no means limited to the United States: for instance, Zoë Wicomb in South Africa or Zadie Smith in the UK both use the passing novel to unravel the complex situation of mixed-race subjects in relation to their family past and to a national past marked by a history of racial inequality.

Yet, the vast majority of critical approaches to racial passing have so far remained largely focused on the United States and its specific history of race relations. The objective of this volume is twofold: it aims at shedding light on the way texts or films show the work of individual memory and collective recollection as they grapple with a racially divided past, struggling with its legacy or playing with its stereotypes. Our second objective has been to explore the great variety in the forms taken by racial passing depending on the context, which in turn leads to differences in the ways it is remembered. Focusing on how a previously erased racial identity may resurface in the present has enabled us to extend the scope of our study to other countries than the United States, so that this volume hopes to propose some new, transnational directions in the study of racial passing.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction – Hélène Charlery and Aurélie Guillain
  • Part I: Memories of Racial Passing – Reconstructing Local and Personal Histories – From Homer Plessy to Paul Broyard
    • To Pass or Not to Pass in New Orleans – Nathalie Dessens
    • Racial Passing at New Orleans Mardi Gras; From Reconstruction to the Mid- Twentieth Century: Flight of Fancy or Masked Resistance? – Aurélie Godet
    • Passing through New Orleans, Atlanta, and New York City: The Dynamics of Racial Assignation in Walter White’s Flight (1926) – Aurélie Guillain
    • African American Women Activists and Racial Passing: Personal Journeys and Subversive Strategies (1880s– 1920s) – Élise Vallier-Mathieu
  • Part II: Memory, Consciousness and the Fantasy of Amnesia in Passing Novels
    • “What Irene Redfield Remembered”: Making It New in Nella Larsen’s Passing – M. Giulia Fabi
    • Between Fiction and Reality: Passing for Non- Jewish in Multicultural American Fiction – Ohad Reznick
    • Experiments in Passing: Racial Passing in George Schuyler’s Black No More and Arthur Miller’s Focus – Ochem G.l.a. Riesthuis
    • Passing to Disappearance: The Voice/ Body Dichotomy and the Problem of Identity in Richard Powers’s The Time of Our Singing (2004) – Anne-Catherine Bascoul
  • Part III: Memories of Racial Passing within and beyond the United States: Towards a Transnational Approach
    • “The Topsy-Turviness of Being in the Wrong Hemisphere” Transnationalizing the Racial Passing Narrative – Sinéad Moynihan
    • Passing, National Reconciliation and Adolescence in Beneath Clouds (Ivan Sen, 2002) and The Wooden Camera (Ntshaveni Wa Luruli, 2003) – Delphine David and Annael Le Poullennec
    • Transnational Gendered Subjectivity in Passing across the Black Atlantic: Nella Larsen’s Passing, Michelle Cliff ’s Free Enterprise and Zadie Smith’s Swing Time – Kerry-Jane Wallart
  • About the Authors/ Editors
  • Index
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