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Passing's Desires for Form: Black Respectability, Queer Narrative, and Wayward Experimentalism.

  • Published In: Modernism/Modernity, 2025, v. 32, n. 1. P. 149 1 of 3

  • Database: Academic Search Ultimate 2 of 3

  • Authored By: Stone, Aaron J. 3 of 3

Abstract

Queer theory often lauds overtly experimental modernisms as models of antinormative disruption and critiques "conventional" narrative forms for complicity with normative ideologies. Nella Larsen's Passing , however, exemplifies how many Harlem Renaissance writers deployed realist and/or linear narrative forms in queer ways. The novel's subtly experimental narration depicts the process by which respectability politics influences a middle-class Black woman to straighten out her own life story in the process of narrating it to herself, revealing the queer deviations undergirding its linearity. A study of Passing 's narrative form thus reveals the queer potential of "conventional" narrative form to critique conventionality from within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional Information

  • Source:Modernism/Modernity. 2025/01, Vol. 32, Issue 1, p149
  • Document Type:Article
  • Subject Area:History
  • Publication Date:2025
  • ISSN:1071-6068
  • DOI:10.1353/mod.2025.a966627
  • Accession Number:187116891
  • Copyright Statement:Copyright of Modernism/Modernity is the property of Johns Hopkins University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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