Deconstructing the Jazz Tradition
Deconstructing the Jazz Tradition
The “Subjectless Subject” of New Jazz Studies
This essay is a reflection on the state of academic jazz studies in the years following Scott DeVeaux's influential article “Constructing the Jazz Tradition” and other interdisciplinary scholarship that called for critical perspectives on jazz historiography, canon formation, and institutionalization. If “deconstructing the jazz tradition” has overtaken “constructing the jazz tradition” as the modus operandi of academic jazz studies today, what is jazz in the “New Jazz Studies”? If we don't teach the jazz tradition, what do we teach? This essay serves as both a reflection on the discipline's current dilemmas and an impassioned call for scholars to listen more closely—to the music, to the musicians, and to one another—in order to nurture a field as multifaceted and vibrant as jazz itself.
Keywords: jazz, academia, historiography, canon formation, New Jazz Studies
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