{"id":57373,"date":"2019-01-27T02:10:05","date_gmt":"2019-01-27T02:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=57373"},"modified":"2021-11-21T02:37:15","modified_gmt":"2021-11-21T02:37:15","slug":"the-blue-stain-a-novel-of-a-racial-outcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=57373","title":{"rendered":"The Blue Stain: A Novel of a Racial Outcast"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Blue Stain: A Novel of a Racial Outcast<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Camden House<\/a> (an imprint of Boydell & Brewer<\/a>)
\nMay 2017 (Originally published in 1922)
\n182 pages
\n9×6 in
\nPaperback ISBN: 9781571139993
\nHardback ISBN: 9781571139825
\neBook for Handhelds ISBN: 9781782049975
\neBook ISBN: 9781787440876<\/p>\n

Hugo Bettauer (1872-1925)<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Translated by:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Peter H\u00f6yng<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Professor of German Studies
\nEmory University, Atlanta, Georgia<\/em><\/p>\n

Chauncey J. Mellor<\/strong><\/a>, Emeritus Professor of German
\nUniversity of Tennessee, Knoxville<\/em><\/p>\n

Afterword by:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kenneth R. Janken<\/strong><\/a>, Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies
\nUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

A European novel of racial mixing and “passing<\/a>” in early twentieth-century America<\/a> that serves as a unique account of transnational and transcultural racial attitudes that continue to reverberate today.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hugo Bettauer’s The Blue Stain, a novel of racial mixing and “passing,”<\/em> starts and ends in Georgia<\/a> but also takes the reader to Vienna<\/a> and New York<\/a>. First published in 1922, the novel tells the story of Carletto, son of a white European academic and an African American daughter of former slaves, who, having passed as white<\/a> in Europe<\/a> and fled to America<\/a> after losing his fortune, resists being seen as “black” before ultimately accepting that identity and joining the early movement for civil rights<\/a>. Never before translated into English, this is the first novel in which a German-speaking European author addresses early twentieth-century racial politics in the United States<\/a> – not only in the South<\/a> but also in the North<\/a>. There is an irony, however: while Bettauer’s narrative aims to sanction a white\/European egalitarianism with respect to race, it nevertheless exhibits its own brand of racism by asserting that African Americans need extensive enculturation<\/a> before they are to be valued as human beings. The novel therefore serves as a unique historical account of transnational and transcultural racial attitudes of the period that continue to reverberate in our present globalized world.<\/p>\n

Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n