World Famous Comics: Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity
Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity
From: Seal Press Publisher: Seal Press Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Seal Press Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 250 Publication Date: November 06, 2006
Nobody Passes is a collection of essays that confronts and challenges the very notion of belonging. By examining the perilous intersections of identity, categorization, and community, contributors challenge societal mores and countercultural norms. Nobody Passes explores and critiques the various systems of power seen (or not seen) in the act of “passing.” In a pass-fail situation, standards for acceptance may vary, but somebody always gets trampled on. This anthology seeks to eliminate the pressure to pass and thereby unearth the delicious and devastating opportunities for transformation that might create. Mattilda, aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore, has a history of editing anthologies based on brazen nonconformity and gender defiance. Mattilda sets out to ask the question, “What lies are people forced to tell in order to gain acceptance as 'real'.” The answers are as varied as the life experiences of the writers who tackle this urgent and essential topic.
Just Who Are We? Sycamore, Matt Bernstein. "Nobody Passes; Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity", Seal Press, 2006.
Just Who Are We?
Amos Lassen
Matt Bernstein Sycamore's anthology "Nobody Passes" has a diverse group of contributors. There is an Arab-American, transgender people, a former political prisoner, a sex worker and a host of others. Each gives his/her personal views on the evolving notions of gender identity, race, class and sexuality. Unlike many other anthologies, each essay is interesting and engaging. The quality of writing is high and many of the essays seem to be candid conversations as the authors discuss identity and community. If there is an overall theme here it is personal frustration in dealing with competing identities, We get no easy solutions but the book does allow us to reflect on the nature of just we are. Dealing with "passing" in America is no easy job and "Nobody Passes" brings the contradictions of our complex identity ideas to the fore as we look at the major components of our identities. We are reminded that personal authenticity is integral to the concept of human liberation and allows us to imagine a world in which there is no need to pretend to be what we are not. It dares to ask id we can fight for the rights of those whose lives and experiences do not fit into our existing paradigms and whose professions are not redeeming morally. The contributors toss out the old, tired, familiar concepts of gender and identity and belonging and, in turn, give us a corrective to those narratives that have passed and still pass for social justice. The entire concept of belonging is carefully examined by looking at the intersections of personality, identity, categorization and community. Countercultural norms and societal mores are challenged as the essays explore and criticize the different systems of power used in "passing". The book tries to eliminate the pressure to pass and in doing so it shoes the opportunities for transformation. We need not be confined by gender, race, sex or sexual preference. The book is, by its nature, controversial but it is also challenging. We are all passing to a certain degree and we need to know if there are options if for no other reason then to allow us to be who we really are.
A True Classic, Having Passed the Test of Time Many months have gone by since the publication of this handsome and groundbreaking anthology, and is is time to declare it a true classic, having passed the test of time, the test truly exacting, the test that makes sense. The articles are still as timely and fresh as the day they were written. On the topic of passing, Mattilda (a/k/a Matt Bernstein Sycamore) is often eloquent, while stretching the topic into unexpected places to such a degree that the often elastic word comes to have little or no connection with the activity it once used to denote. In a way, this book is a more progressive and activist sequel to Brooke Kroeger's standard-bearing study PASSING: WHEN PEOPLE CAN"T BE WHO THEY ARE. "Passing"---the search to be what you're not---has gotten a bad press over the years, and Kroeger's book was one of the first to make us challenge our assumptions regarding this taboo topic.
In a similar vein, Mattilda assembles a cross section of profiles of young contemporary Americans, supplementing extensive interviews with expert comment. In the background of NOBODY PASSES we experience, as though a shadow had crossed the sun, the tragic tales of "passing" as that of Brandon Teena, the drifter whose murder became the basis for the film "Boys Don't Cry." Mattilda's book urges to ask the question, Aren't we all "passing" in one way or another? She musters scholarly and theoretical sources to support her speculations on identity and authenticity, and even dares to ask, why are we doing this? What market are we being offered up to satisfy?
Why is eros shaped the way it is? Why do some pass the test (the other test, not the test of time) and others fail, condemned into a limbo of "quirky" and deprived of the rights accorded other citizens with more money. Gender reassignment is just one way in which the staus quo is seized with a desire to smooth every bump away. Other prejudices must be battled daily. Some of the writers aren't as skilled as others, but that's just a fact of life and it doesn't mean they don't have fascinating things to say. "We're jaded, shaded, judged every day by everyone else's eyes, given pass or fail," writes Jen Cross, "a glance over, an examination." Unlearning oneself may be the only way out, that, and organized mass action. Your identity may not be the same as mine, but you will learn to respect mine, and your own, after you read through the challenging and controversial essays in this book.
A book every radical feminist and LGBTQI activist should read! As a queer man who because of my politics, my class, and my weight always felt like an outsider among other queer men, this radical anthology on passing and not passing really resonated with me. Like Gloria Anzaldua's groundbreaking feminist classic, "Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza", this book challenges us all to interrogate the gender, racial, and sexual orientation dichotomies that so confine us. By exploring the contradictions, ambiguities, and complexities of our individual and collective selves, this liberatory book encourages readers to move beyond identity politics and discover new frontiers. Whether you are a lesbian-identified gay man like myself, or a heterosexual queer, or a multiracial transgendered individual, or a white person of color, this fascinating book will help you embrace your multiplicities and live outside of the binary system. Activists who have read and enjoyed Mattilda's earlier anthology, "That's Revolting!" will not be disappointed with this book.
less like jane, more like shaw buy a copy of this book for yourself and any person you know that isnt simple minded. The other day i went out and bought two copies, one for me, and one for that kind of person, and both of us love it. Though i am not done yet, this book is one of my favorite non-fiction that i have read this year. Matt Bernstein Sycamore does not pretend to be an absolute authority on the topics of passing/not passing, and niether do any of the contributors, but they all hand down a great amount of knowledge to the reader about what it is like to grow up as an Okie, in a homohop group, someone who is into masochism, a disabled lesbian, and so on.
before coming across this book, i had never put much thought into the topics of passing and how they touch my life and others, and like Sycamores other books, this one definatly opened my eyes wider than before.
With Nobody Passes, Sycamore gives us a book with topics that aren't focused in on by the mainstream, and the underground.
Mattilda's past books have changed my life and how i look at things, and this one is already starting too, so i HIGHLY suggest picking this up and giving it a read.
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