Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Schalk, Sami

Titel

Transing: Resistance to Eugenic Ideology in Nella Larsen's Passing

Ist Teil von

• Journal of modern literature, 2015-03, Vol.38 (3), p.148-161

Ort / Verlag

Bloomington: Indiana University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2015

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Project MUSE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Nella Larsen's Passing can be seen as a critique of early-twentieth-century eugenic ideology. Race, class, gender, and sexual binaries were mutually constituted in eugenic ideology and practices of the period and, therefore, cannot be separated or hierarchically ranked in any analysis of the character Clare Kendry. Clare challenges these identity binaries by attempting to not simply cross over them, but to live on both sides of them. The both/and nature of her actions and desires makes Clare a trans- figure, one who passes over, across, within and between categories, thereby defying and critiquing the eugenic ideological notion that identity categories are discrete, natural, and fixed.