Passing

"This book takes its title from the homonymous novel by Nella Larsen who, during the Harlem Renaissance, posed the question of what it means to be black in a racist country. The practice of passing was in fact used by African Americans to escape discrimination during the time of segregation. Nella Larsen in her novel condemns this practice, but also shows its potential, defining it as "not entirely strange perhaps ... but certainly not entirely friendly."" "Starting from this consideration, Camaiti Hostert's book turns the meaning of the social practice of passing upside down and makes it become a universal tool to redefine any social, ethnic, gender, and religious identity. Based on the Foucauldian consideration that total visibility is a "trap," the author focuses her attention on the interstices, on the spaces off and on the narratives between the lines. The emphasis is on the transitional moment, in a Gramscian sense: the fluid state flowing between the starting and ending points becomes the place of a counter-hegemony, which helps not only to rewrite history but also to change the political status quo." "Camaiti Hostert's book emphasizes hybridity and displacement; passing is a tool to redefine in our contemporary times the role of social practices as well as the personal self."--Jacket.