Syllabus

Primary Texts:

• Langston Hughes, Selected Poems 
• Toni Morrison – Jazz
• Le Roi Jones, selected poetry 
• Angela Davis, selections from Blues Legacies and Black Feminism 
• Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man. “Remembering Jimmy” 
• James Baldwin – “Sonny’s Blues,” “Of the Sorrow Songs” 
• Billie Holiday  - A Musical Romance (CD) 
• Wanda Coleman – selected short stories
• + poetry by Jayne Cortez, Sonia Sanchez, Rita Dove, and others

Secondary Readings:

• James Baldwin – "Of the Sorrow Songs"
• Langston Hughes – "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," “Jazz as     Communication,” “Songs Called the Blues”
• LeRoi Jones, Ch.1 and 2 from Blues People
• Lawrence Levine – “Jazz and American Culture” 
• Toni Morrison  -  “Interview with Angels Carabi”
• Albert Murray "Improvisation and the Creative Process"
• Recordings by Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and others….