Professor Dee Morris
Office: EPB 460
Office hours: Thurs. 2:00-3:45 pm & by appointment
dee-morris@uiowa.edu
When writers align their poems with blues or jazz, they use specific sound shapes and performance practices to engage a complex and powerful cultural history. This course will explore the racial, political, and ethical implications of that history as it appears in poems, essays, and novels by such writers as Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Ralph Ellison, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, Nathaniel Mackey, Harryette Mullen, and Toni Morrison. As frequently as we can, we will engage multiple texts by one author—novels and poems by Mackey, poems and essays by Baraka—and pair writers with the musicians who challenged and inspired them. In addition to listening to what Baraka calls “musicked language,” we will also look at evocations of blues and jazz in art, photography, and film.
KEY TO THE HOT LINKS IN THE CLICKSTRIP
SYLLABUS: This overview of the course includes a list of required texts, a reading schedule, blues and jazz cuts, terms introduced in the various sessions, and due dates for assignments.
ASSIGNMENTS: This page contains descriptions of the oral, written, and internet assignments for the course as well as tips, hints, and other attempts to be helpful.
DISCUSSION: This link takes you to a password-protected place to post, ask questions, make observations, and/or think out loud.RESOURCES: This page contains a list of books on reserve, useful websites, and other materials for the class.