SF-H1178 Honors Jazz to Jay-Z: Black Music and Literature
Jazz and blues music of the early twentieth century has been hailed as a potent expression of African American life and as a major contribution to American culture. Albert Murray writes, "'the blues idiom' is a synthesis of African and European elements, the product of an Afro-American sensibility in an American mainland situation." Since its birth in the early twentieth century and movement from New Orleans throughout the rest of the country following "The Great Migration," the form expanded, diversified, and explored its artistic potential throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, giving way to bop, rock and roll, electric blues, soul, disco, funk, R & B, and rap. African American literature evolved simultaneously and in parallel ways. There is such a strong connection between black music and literature that it makes sense to study them together. In this seminar, we will explore the history and form of black music and black literature from the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s through contemporary rap. We will study work that spans a hundred years of African American cultural production, analyzing trends and developments through a careful interpretation of musical and literary texts and their adjuncts (such as music video and film).
Prerequisite
CAS Honors Only