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| Semester | fall semester 2014 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Christian Hänggi (christian.haenggi@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | In jazz, the 1940s were a time of transition. A group of musicians spearheaded by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Thelonius Monk, among others, was bored with the routines and corsets of swing music that largely catered to the white establishment. They got together in smaller formations to experiment with and expand the possibilities of musical expression. Fascinated by this new, fast-paced, and harmonically more challenging style, later termed bebop, was a group of young Americans who were on the brink of forming their own literary style: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and others. They saw in the musical form of bebop and in the lifestyle associated with it analogies to their own political and artistic concerns. This proseminar aims to investigate the intersections between two quintessentially American forms of artistic expression: the prose and poetry of the Beat Generation and the music of the bebop era. It will introduce a number of canonical Beat writings as well as the milestones of modern jazz and discuss what they have in common and how much - if anything - of the Beats' admiration for bebop was reciprocated. |
| Learning objectives | Students are introduced to a number of canonical writings of the Beat Generation and the milestones of modern jazz. |
| Bibliography | - Excerpts from "The Portable Beat Reader" (Ed. Ann Charters. London: Penguin, 1992). - Charles Mingus, "Beneath the Underdog" (Ed. Nel King. New York: Vintage, 1991). Please read "Beneath the Underdog" and pp. xv-xxxvi and 1-7 of "The Portable Beat Reader" before the start of the seminar and listen to some music by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Thelonius Monk, and others from that era. Additional mandatory readings are made available on ISIS. |
| Comments | Please make sure you are not registered for more than one of the parallel courses by September 8. After this date, you will be allocated to one of the courses by the instructors to make room for those on the waiting list. |
| Weblink | ISIS |
| Admission requirements | Old BA curriculum (2005): This course may only be taken after successful completion of the first-year module "Learning about Literature". New BA curriculum (2013): It is strongly recommended that this course is taken only after the successful completion of the "Introduction I + II: Literary Studies" proseminars. |
| Course application | ******* 16 Sept 2014: This course is full; no more registrations can be accepted. ******** Students are required to register on ISIS. Please note that places are limited and that once this particular course is fully booked you will have to sign up for one of the alternative options. Cf. "Bemerkungen" for additional information. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | Online, mandatory |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|
No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.
| Modules |
Modul Introduction to Anglophone Literary and Cultural Studies (Bachelor's degree subject: English) Modul Refining Skills in Literature and Culture (Bachelor's degree subject: English (Start of studies before 01.08.2013)) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | t.b.a. |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Englische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft |