MUS 156
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Jazz Spring 2013
Division I Writing Skills Exploring Diversity Initiative
Cross-listed AFR 156 / ENGL 223 / AMST 156 / COMP 156
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

Taking its title from the Wallace Stevens poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” which interprets the blackbird in different ways, this course similarly explores a more complex, multi-layered perspective on jazz, from jazz and American democracy to jazz in visual art. Accordingly, the course introduces students to several genres, including historical documents, cultural criticism, music, literature, film, photography and art. The course does not draw on a musicological method but rather a socio-cultural analysis of the concept, music and its effect–so students are not required to have any prior musical knowledge or ability. In this writing intensive course, students will write short close analyses of multiple types of media, ultimately building up to an argumentative essay. This EDI course explores the musical expressions of the culturally diverse peoples of African descent in the New World, as well as the myriad ways in which representations of jazz signify on institutional power, reaffirm dominant U.S. and/or European hierarchies of race, gender and class, and signal inequality in order to contest it.
The Class: Format: lecture
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 3261
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: class participation, 1 quiz, weekly 2-page response essays in course journal, 2 4-page close analyses, 1 oral presentation/performance with 2-page critical report, and 1 6- to 8-page argumentative essay, totaling slightly over 20 pages of written work
Extra Info: not available for the Gaudino option and cannot be taken Pass/Fail
Prerequisites: none
Enrollment Preferences: none
Distributions: Division I Writing Skills Exploring Diversity Initiative
Notes: Meets Division 2 requirement if registration is under AFR and AMST; meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under COMP, MUS or ENGL
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
AFR 156 Division II MUS 156 Division I ENGL 223 Division I AMST 156 Division II COMP 156 Division I

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