Cross-Rhythms

Keren Omry teaches Jazz and American Literature at Tel Aviv University and at University of Haifa, Israel.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Blues Notes: A Discourse of Race in the Poetry of Langston Hughes, in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and in Corregidora by Gayl Jones; 3. Bebop Spoken Here: Performativity in Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison; 4. Modes of Experience: Modal Jazz and the Authority of Experience in Ishmael Reed's Mumbo jumbo, Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon; 5. Free Jazz: Postracialism and Collectivity in Morrison's Recitatif and Paradise; Conclusion; Works cited; Discography; Index.

"What a delight to watch Keren Omry turn Theodor Adorndegree on his head! Adorno hated jazz, but Omry has scrupulously transformed his writings into a valuable resource for theorizing the role of jazz in fiction and poetry. She has also brought her astute sensibility to the theories of Houston Baker, Henry Louis Gates, and Angela Davis as she assesses the appropriation of jazz by - among many others - Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Zara Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison. Omry has made a valuable contribution to both literary and jazz studies." - Professor Krin Gabbard, Department Comparative Literature and English, State University of New York, USA Mention -Chronicle of Higher Education, March 13, 2009