Passing : Identity and Interpretation in Sexuality, Race, and Religion

by Sanchez, Maria C.

• ISBN13: 9780814781234
• ISBN10: 0814781233
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780814708613
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-08-01
• Publisher: New York University Press

Summary

Passing for what you are not--whether it is mulattos passing as white, Jews passing as Christian, or drag queens passing as women--can be a method of protection or self-defense. But it can also be a uniquely pleasurable experience, one that trades on the erotics of secrecy and revelation. It is precisely passing's radical playfulness, the way it asks us to reconsider our assumptions and forces our most cherished fantasies of identity to self-destruct, that is centrally addressed inPassing: Identity and Interpretation in Sexuality, Race, and Religion.Identity in Western culture is largely structured around visibility, whether in the service of science (Victorian physiognomy), psychoanalysis (Lacan's mirror stage), or philosophy (the Panopticon). As such, it is charged with anxieties regarding classification and social demarcation. Passing wreaks havoc with accepted systems of social recognition and cultural intelligibility, blurring the carefully-marked lines of race, gender, and class.Bringing together theories of passing across a host of disciplines--from critical race theory and lesbian and gay studies, to literary theory and religious studies--Passingcomplicates our current understanding of the visual and categories of identity.Contributors: Michael Bronski, Karen McCarthy Brown, Bradley Epps, Judith Halberstam, Peter Hitchcock, Daniel Itzkovitz, Patrick O'Malley, Miriam Peskowitz, María C. Sánchez Linda Schlossberg, and Sharon Ullman.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Rites of Passing	1	(12)
Linda Schlossberg
Telling Tales: Brandon Teena, Billy Tipton, and Transgender Biography	13	(25)
Judith Halberstam
Passing Like Me: Jewish Chameleonism and the Politics of Race	38	(26)
Daniel Itzkovitz
Whiteness Invisible: Early Mexican American Writing and the Color of Literary History	64	(28)
Maria Carla Sanchez
Passing Lines: Immigration and the Performance of American Identity	92	(43)
Brad Epps
From Victorian Parlor to Physique Pictorial: The Male Nude and Homosexual Identity	135	(25)
Michael Bronski
Slumming	160	(27)
Peter Hitchock
The ``Self-Made Man'': Male Impersonation and the New Woman	187	(21)
Sharon Ullman
Mimesis in the Face of Fear: Femme Queens, Butch Queens, and Gender Play in the Houses of Greater Newark	208	(20)
Karen McCarthy Brown
``The Church's Closet'': Confessionals, Victorian Catholicism, and the Crisis of Identification	228	(32)
Patrick R. O'Malley
Moses' Wilderness Tabernacle	260	(13)
Miriam Peskowitz
Contributors	273