Crossing the Line: Racial Passing in Twentieth-Century U.S. Literature and Culture

Gayle Wald

Published by Duke University Press 2000

Crossing the Line

Racial Passing in Twentieth-Century U.S. Literature and Culture

Gayle Wald
Edited by: Donald E. Pease

In the series New Americanists

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822380924

Overview
Contents

About this book

Examines constructions of racial identity through the exploration of passing narratives including Black Like Me and forties jazz musician Mezz Mezzrow’s memoir Really the Blues.

Author / Editor information

Gayle Wald is Assistant Professor of English at George Washington University.

Reviews

“Crossing the Line offers a superbly well-developed analysis of narratives of racial passing and a strategy for engaging such narratives. It will set the standard for subsequent treatments of racial passing.”—Dana Nelson, author of National Manhood: Capitalist Citizenship and the Imagined Fraternity of White Men

“Deeply engaging, well-researched, and effective, Crossing the Line is a fine multidisciplinary study not only of passing narratives but of the social, political, and economic struggles that they negotiate in racial terms.”— Priscilla Wald, author of Constituting Americans: Cultural Anxiety and Narrative Form

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction: Race, Passing, and Cultural Representation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1. Home Again: Racial Negotiations in Modernist African American Passing Narratives Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
Chapter 2. Mezz Mezzrow and the Voluntary Negro Blues Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	53
Chapter 3. Boundaries Lost and Found: Racial Passing and Cinematic Representation, circa 1949 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	82
Chapter 4. ‘‘I’m Through with Passing’’: Postpassing Narratives in Black Popular Literary Culture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	116
Chapter 5. ‘‘A Most Disagreeable Mirror’’: Reflections on White Identity in Black Like Me Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	152
Epilogue: Passing, ‘‘Color Blindness,’’ and Contemporary Discourses of Race and Identity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	182
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 272
Illustrations
- Other: 12 b&w photographs

eBook

Published: July 24, 2000
ISBN: 9780822380924