Thread: Senior Capstone Thesis help

Hey SRP friends,

I'm having some trouble coming up with what to write about for my upcoming senior capstone project in a couple weeks. I'm an English major with an emphasis on Literary Studies and am about to start my final semester of college before graduating (at 30) . I have to write a 20 page paper on a topic of my choice, relating to literature or literary concepts in some way of course. I love jazz music, vintage and contemporary, and have read and know much about it. I'd like to combine jazz music/history with literature in some way for my paper. Any ideas? Perhaps the Harlem Renaissance could some how be compared or affiliated with the music and history of jazz.

If you wanted to write about jazz/ Harlem renaissance, then I'd be apt to focus on the poetry and writings of authors such as Arna Bontemps, Langston Hughes, et al. You could even dig deeper and show how these authors were influenced by W.E.B. Dubois and show how his writing, The Souls of Black Folk, was a precursor to the Harlem Renaissance.
I've written more than a few papers on each of the authors listed if you want to toss some ideas around.

To DPeets list I would only add Ralph Ellison who not only had lots of references to jazz in his books but wrote a collection of stuff specifically about jazz. If it's any consolation, my freshman year of college started when I was 30

urbanwanderer,

Sounds quite interesting as a topic. You should be able to find lots and lots of books as well as scholarly articles, using the online search engine as well as the reference librarian of your school's library.

I've taught African American history at the college level for the last 30+ years. In fact, I just finished reviewing a book on the Harlem Renaissance and its global/diasporic implications. You can find it here:

Amazon.com: Escape from New York: The New Negro Renaissance beyond Harlem (9780816677399): Davarian L. Baldwin, Minkah Makalani: Books

The book has at least one essay on jazz musicians. As literature, you may want to discuss/analyze the lyrics of selected jazz songs during the Harlem Renaissance--treating the music as performative literature. If you want to pursue this path of scholarship, you will want to consult the work of Lawrence Levine. He is best known for the book, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom in which he discusses the meaning as well as changes in African American musical expression from slavery to the 20th century. He also authored a collection of essays entitled, The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural History. There are two essays in that book that may be of use to you: "The Concept of the New Negro and the Realities of Black Culture" and "Jazz and American Culture."

The preceding three books will most likely provide you with a conceptual framework as well as historical background for your senior thesis.

Good luck!