{"id":37011,"date":"2014-08-09T22:48:40","date_gmt":"2014-08-09T22:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=37011"},"modified":"2016-01-27T01:14:47","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T01:14:47","slug":"reading-race-in-nella-larsens-passing-and-the-rhinelander-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=37011","title":{"rendered":"Reading Race in Nella Larsen\u2019s Passing and the Rhinelander Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1353\/afa.2013.0076\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Reading Race in Nella Larsen\u2019s Passing and the Rhinelander Case<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/journals\/african_american_review\" target=\"_blank\">African American Review<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/journals\/african_american_review\/toc\/afa.46.2-3.html\" target=\"_blank\">Voluume 46, Numbers 2-3, Summer\/Fall 2013<\/a><br \/>\npages 345-361<br \/>\nDOI: <a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1353\/afa.2013.0076\" target=\"_blank\">10.1353\/afa.2013.0076<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccanisetich.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Rebecca Nisetich<\/strong><\/a>, Assistant Director, Honors Program<br \/>\n<em>University of Southern Maine<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Toward the end of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nella_Larsen\" target=\"_blank\">Nella Larsen\u2019s<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=2508\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Passing<\/em><\/a> (1929), the protagonist Irene Redfield imagines how her friend Clare Kendry\u2019s racist husband might react if he discovers his wife\u2019s \u201ctrue\u201d racial identity: \u201cWhat if Bellew should divorce Clare? Could he? There was the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Leonard_Rhinelander#Divorce_trial\" target=\"_blank\">Rhinelander<\/a> case.\u201d This essay argues that what seems like a casual reference to a contemporary event actually underscores a central theme of the novel: the Rhinelander case and <em>Passing<\/em> both illustrate the problematic ways Americans sought to categorize mixed-race individuals in the 1920s, but while the Rhinelander verdict denies the existence of a middle ground between racial absolutes, the novel affirms it. Larsen directly references the Rhinelander case only once, but its themes echo throughout the text of <em>Passing<\/em>, which challenges the visibility of race and the conception of racial identity as intimately connected to one&#8217;s essential self. Irene&#8217;s reference calls to mind a very public trial that forced Americans to question their understanding of racial difference. In <em>Passing<\/em>, Larsen explores the conceptions of race as a real physical fact and as an imagined social construct, and challenges the logic of \u201ccommon knowledge\u201d and visibility in assigning racial identity to individuals.<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/media.wix.com\/ugd\/c384a8_87491302dcd84b5885ba831d2c8b03a6.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reading Race in Nella Larsen\u2019s Passing and the Rhinelander Case African American Review Voluume 46, Numbers 2-3, Summer\/Fall 2013 pages 345-361 DOI: 10.1353\/afa.2013.0076 Rebecca Nisetich, Assistant Director, Honors Program University of Southern Maine Toward the end of Nella Larsen\u2019s Passing (1929), the protagonist Irene Redfield imagines how her friend Clare Kendry\u2019s racist husband might react [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,6462,20],"tags":[2758,87,17702,1445],"class_list":["post-37011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-african-american-review","tag-nella-larsen","tag-rebecca-nisetich","tag-rhinelander-v-rhinelander"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37011","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=37011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45393,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37011\/revisions\/45393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}