The Neo-Passing Narrative

This introduction defines neo-passing by contextualizing the term not only in relation to classic passing narratives and scholarship on passing but also in relation to broad notions of performance, pretending, and identifying. The editors also connect their effort to delineate a genre of neo-passing narratives to recent scholarly efforts to define neo-slave narratives and neo-segregation narratives. Like those genres, neo-passing narratives mediate between historical and contemporary notions of racial and intersectional injustice. Using several recent case studies, the introduction explores the ways in which neo-passing narratives speak directly to the contradictions within contemporary debates about colorblindness and color-consciousness, or what one contributor calls the debate between postracialism and most-racialism. Finally, the introduction briefly describes each essay in the volume, emphasizing its engagement in a vigorous debate about the specific ways in which neo-passing narratives alternatively shore up, deconstruct, or complicate our understanding of performance and identity production after Jim Crow.