Jazz, Race, and Social Change

Catalog description

The sociological study of jazz provides valuable insights into the intersection of music, culture, and social change. Jazz, as a genre rooted in the Black experience in America, has played a significant role in shaping and reflecting social change. For over a century, jazz has facilitated identity, creative expression, and embodied pleasure. It has served political agendas ranging from American imperialism to Black liberation. It has instituted varied systems of value (e.g. male hegemony) and fueled varied political economies (e.g. sex work to neoliberal capitalism). Its changing uses – from popular entertainment to high art – and social worlds have informed and determined who, how and why the public listens to jazz. Jazz also boasts a global impact, influencing musicians and audiences worldwide. We begin the course by establishing a vocabulary for listening to jazz and by considering its origin stories, we then develop these skills and ideas to consider how jazz shapes and is shaped by social, cultural, and political life.