Special Session

Genres and Audiences / American

Martin Japtok (Palomar College)
mjap@****.com (Log-in to reveal)

The session invites readings of individual passing novels and also assessments of the genre at large: Have the reasons for passing shifted? What is passing supposed to accomplish? Do the novels themselves endorse or condemn passing, and has there been a shift concerning whether they are more likely to do one than the other? What does the continued attraction to passing as a theme mean?

Depending on what definition of passing one applies or what kind of passing it thematizes, the passing novel is an old genre, but it continues to bring forth new iterations of itself. The session invites readings of individual passing novels and also assessments of the genre at large: Have the reasons for passing shifted? What is passing supposed to accomplish? Do the novels themselves endorse or condemn passing, and has there been a shift concerning whether they are more likely to do one than the other? What does the continued attraction to passing as a theme mean?