General Catalog 2024-25

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. How has jazz come to symbolize so many different political tendencies—freedom and democratic values, threat to order and civil society, possibility of integration and racial harmony, Black liberation and nationalism, conservatism, surrealism, socialism, etc., throughout 20th century? What about jazz enables people to read their political aspirations and hopes in what is primarily instrumental, improvised music? Exploration of history of ideas about jazz, specifically how writers, activists, movements, and musicians understood politics of jazz. Exploration of political imaginations—here and abroad—in particular in jazz and question of freedom—social freedom, political freedom, cultural, and artistic freedom. P/NP or letter grading.