Description
Wald begins her reading of twentieth-century passing narratives by analyzing works by African American writers James Weldon Johnson, Jessie Fauset, and Nella Larsen, showing how they use the "passing plot" to explore the negotiation of identity, agency, and freedom within the context of their protagonists' restricted choices. She then examines the 1946 autobiography Really the Blues, which details the transformation of Milton Mesirow, middle-class son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, into Mezz Mezzrow, jazz musician and self-described "voluntary Negro." Turning to the 1949 films Pinky and
Lost Boundaries, which imagine African American citizenship within class-specific protocols of race and gender, she interrogates the complicated representation of racial passing in a visual medium. Her investigation of "post-passing" testimonials in postwar African American magazines, which strove to foster black consumerism while constructing "positive" images of black achievement and affluence in the postwar years, focuses on neglected texts within the archives of black popular culture. Finally, after a look at liberal contradictions of John Howard Griffin's 1961 auto-ethnography Black Like Me, Wald concludes with an epilogue that considers the idea of passing in the context of the recent discourse of "color blindness."
Wald's analysis of the moral, political, and theoretical dimensions of racial passing makes Crossing the Line important reading as we approach the twenty-first century. Her engaging and dynamic book will be of particular interest to scholars of American studies, African American studies, cultural studies, and literary criticism.
Examines constructions of racial identity through the exploration of passing narratives including forties jazz musician Mezz Mezzrow's memoir Really the Blues
About the Author
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
Book Information
ISBN 9780822325154
Author Gayle Wald
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 572g