Overview

This study fills a gap in scholarship on the subject of sexual passing. It examines sexual passing in Linda Villarosa's Passing for Black and argues that the blacks' Christian tradition of homophobia necessitates sexual passing. It traces the emergence of a hybrid popular romance novel that places itself in the African American literary tradition while exploring sexual identity found in subgenre lesbian romances. Linda Villarosa's Passing for Black, a thinly-veiled autobiographical novel, builds on the African American literary tradition of passing in Charles Chesnutt's The House behind the Cedars and links to the sexual passing phenomenon in the popular romance genre evident in K.E. Lane's And Playing the Role of Herself. This study answers four overarching questions previously unexamined by critics: Why does Passing for Black interrogate the black Christians' tradition of homophobia that impels sexual passing? How does it challenge this tradition? How does it signify on the passing performance found in Charles Chesnutt's The House behind the Cedars? How does it expand on the passing performance found in K.E. Lane's lesbian novel And Playing the Role of Herself?

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9780773442726

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Reviews

"""Rita B. Dandridge's study breaks new ground. It examines sexual passing and homophobia in the black church community against the backdrop of a history of racism in America... Dandridge's critical study of sexual passing in this novel is significant because it illuminates the cause of sexual passing in the black church community as neither African American novels nor lesbian romances have done."" (Professor Freddy L. Thomas, Department of Languages and Literature, Virginia State University) ""This work adds to the current academic conversation on identity by foregrounding the importance of race. As the author makes clear, a lesbian of color who is closeted and passes herself off as heterosexual experiences such ""passing"" in a way that is qualitatively different from the lesbian who is white, closeted, and passing as a straight woman."" (Associate Professor Diann Baecker, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Virginia State University)"""

Rita B. Dandridge's study breaks new ground. It examines sexual passing and homophobia in the black church community against the backdrop of a history of racism in America... Dandridge's critical study of sexual passing in this novel is significant because it illuminates the cause of sexual passing in the black church community as neither African American novels nor lesbian romances have done. (Professor Freddy L. Thomas, Department of Languages and Literature, Virginia State University) This work adds to the current academic conversation on identity by foregrounding the importance of race. As the author makes clear, a lesbian of color who is closeted and passes herself off as heterosexual experiences such passing in a way that is qualitatively different from the lesbian who is white, closeted, and passing as a straight woman. (Associate Professor Diann Baecker, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Virginia State University)

Author Information

Dr. Rita B. Dandridge is a professor in the Department of Languages and Literature at Virginia State University. She teaches courses in African American literature and women's studies. She received her Ph.D. in English from Howard University, Washington D.C. In addition to her many articles, she has published the following books: Ann Allen Shockley: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography (Greenwood, 1987), Black Women's Blues: A Literary Anthology, 1934-1988 (G.K. Hall, 1992), and Black Women's Activism: Reading African American Women's Historical Romances (Peter Lang 2004).

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