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

Judith Halberstam takes issue with transgender biography that ""recasts the act of passing as deception, dishonesty, and fraud."" Brad Epps explores the immigrant experience of interrogation upon crossing borders. Sharon Ullman looks at the early 20th-century phenomenon of male impersonation in relation to the ""`New Woman'"" campaign of first-wave feminists. In Passing: Identity and Interpretation in Sexuality, Race, and Religion, editors Maria Carla Sanchez and Linda Schlossberg have assembled relevant cultural criticism by 10 scholars. Familiar names like Brandon Teena, George Orwell and Charles Atlas are discussed alongside less known figures like early Mexican-American author Mar a Amparo Ruiz de Burton and a popular vaudevillian of indeterminate gender named Biscauex. (Nov. 1)