Bibliograph

That middle world, race, performance, and the politics of passing, Julia S. Charles

Type

Label

That middle world, race, performance, and the politics of passing, Julia S. Charles

Language

eng

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

That middle world

Medium

electronic resource

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Responsibility statement

Julia S. Charles

Sub title

race, performance, and the politics of passing

Summary

In this study of racial passing literature, Julia S. Charles highlights how mixed-race subjects invent cultural spaces for themselves-a place she terms that middle world-and how they, through various performance strategies, make meaning in the interstices between the Black and white worlds. Focusing on the construction and performance of racial identity in works by writers from the antebellum period through Reconstruction, Charles creates a new discourse around racial passing to analyze mixed-race characters' social objectives when crossing into other racialized spaces. To illustrate how this middle world and its attendant performativity still resonates in the present day, Charles connects contemporary figures, television, and film-including Rachel Doleal and her black-passing controversy, the FX show Atlanta, and the musical Show Boat-to a range of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literary texts. Charles's work offers a nuanced approach to African American passing literature and examines how mixed-race performers articulated their sense of selfhood and communal belonging

Target audience

adult

Classification