This course will explore the link between Jazz music and 20th century American literature and culture. Listening to musical examples in the class, and reading theoretical work on the politics of aesthetics, the course will offer an introduction to jazz as a basis for literary analysis. Examining texts such as the blues poetry of Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison’s Jazz, Norman Mailer’s “White Negro”, James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”, and Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, the course will explore the wide variety of jazz presences in literature. The different writers use jazz differently – as imagery, content, language, and narrative structure – in order to locate themselves in a particular historical, political, social, and aesthetic moment. · Final exam Marks: Attendance & Participation: 20% Paper/Presentation: 20% Final Exam: 60%