{"id":13456,"date":"2011-04-25T21:19:34","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T21:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=13456"},"modified":"2011-06-25T20:03:54","modified_gmt":"2011-06-25T20:03:54","slug":"nhum3031-passing-reconstructing-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=13456","title":{"rendered":"NHUM3031 Passing: (Re)Constructing Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newschool.edu\/bachelorsprogram\/subpage.aspx?id=24476\" target=\"_blank\">NHUM3031 Passing: (Re)Constructing Identity<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newschool.edu\" target=\"_blank\">The New School<\/a><br \/>\nFall 2009<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newschool.edu\/bachelorsprogram\/faculty.aspx?id=19694\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Tracyann Williams<\/strong><\/a>, Instructor<\/p>\n<p>Passing: (Re)Constructing Identity: \u201cPassing,\u201d a term traditionally used to describe fair-skinned Blacks posing as whites, is, in fact, part of a broader cultural phenomenon that has its origins in the pursuit of \u201cthe American Dream.\u201d For the sake of economic comforts, racially, ethnically, and sexually diverse individuals submerge certain aspects of their identity in order to \u201cpass\u201d into the community of \u201cwhiteness.\u201d Passing comes with obvious advantages, but for some, great personal sacrifice. We read Helen Fremont\u2019s memoir detailing the ethnic (and religious) journey taken by her parents, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nella_Larsen\" target=\"_blank\">Nella Larsen\u2019s<\/a> multilayered novel <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=2508\" target=\"_blank\">Passing<\/a><\/em>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Diane_Middlebrook\" target=\"_blank\">Diane Wood Middlebrook\u2019s<\/a> biography of gender-crossing jazz musician <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Billy_Tipton\" target=\"_blank\">Billy Tipton<\/a>. We examine how particular individuals become white while whiteness remains unattainable by others. We draw on \u201cwhiteness studies,\u201d an interdisciplinary field that decenters hegemonic markers connected to white dominance, and through this lens, we explore the racial, ethnic, and sexual biases embedded in our culture that have propelled individuals to reinvent themselves. At the dawn of the 21st century, these biases are supposedly less potent. We test this assumption by examining passing in the contemporary context.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NHUM3031 Passing: (Re)Constructing Identity The New School Fall 2009 Tracyann Williams, Instructor Passing: (Re)Constructing Identity: \u201cPassing,\u201d a term traditionally used to describe fair-skinned Blacks posing as whites, is, in fact, part of a broader cultural phenomenon that has its origins in the pursuit of \u201cthe American Dream.\u201d For the sake of economic comforts, racially, ethnically, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1564,125,1196,8,6462,20],"tags":[6137,6136],"class_list":["post-13456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courses","category-identitydevelopment","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-the-new-school","tag-tracyann-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}