This essay employs social theory, legal precedent, literature and rhetorical analysis to respond to the following specific interrogations: (1) How do acts of passing become communicative behaviors that simultaneously express/deny identity and defy the fixity of institutionally imposed racial identification? And, (2) what does a rhetorical perspective on legal precedent and literature under the context of Structuration Theory reveal about the definitions of racial classification and “passing?” Or, more simply stated, what’s race got to do with it?
“Spinning on Margins: A Rhetorical Perspective on Racial Passing,” Queen: Rhetorics of Identity--Place, Race, Sex and the Person Vol. 5, No. 1 (2005): 2-21.