Anti-Music: Jazz and Racial Blackness in German Thought between the Wars (SUNY series, Philosophy and Race)

Anti-Music examines the critical, literary, and political responses to African American jazz music in interwar Germany. During this time, jazz was the subject of overt political debate between left-wing and right-wing interests: for the left, jazz marked the death knell of authoritarian Prussian society; for the right, jazz was complicit as an American import threatening the chaos of modernization and mass politics. This conflict was resolved in the early 1930s as the left abandoned jazz in the face of Nazi victory, having come to see the music in collusion with the totalitarian culture industry. Mark Christian Thompson recounts the story of this intellectual trajectory and describes how jazz came to be associated with repressive, virulently racist fascism in Germany. By examining writings by Hermann Hesse, Bertolt Brecht, T.W. Adorno, and Klaus Mann, and archival photographs and images, Thompson brings together debates in German, African American, and jazz studies, and charts a new path for addressing antiblack racism in cultural criticism and theory. - Mark Christian Thompson is Professor of English at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Black Fascisms: African American Literature and Culture between the Wars and Kafka's Blues: Figurations of Racial Blackness in the Construction of an Aesthetic. (Klappentext) Anti-Music examines the critical, literary, and political responses to African American jazz music in interwar Germany. During this time, jazz was the subject of overt political debate between left-wing and right-wing interests: for the left, jazz marked the death knell of authoritarian Prussian society; for the right, jazz was complicit as an American import threatening the chaos of modernization and mass politics. This conflict was resolved in the early 1930s as the left abandoned jazz in the face of Nazi victory, having come to see the music in collusion with the totalitarian culture industry. Mark Christian Thompson recounts the story of this intellectual trajectory and describes how jazz came to be associated with repressive, virulently racist fascism in Germany. By examining writings by Hermann Hesse, Bertolt Brecht, T.W. Adorno, and Klaus Mann, and archival photographs and images, Thompson brings together debates in German, African American, and jazz studies, and charts a new path for addressing antiblack racism in cultural criticism and theory. Book jacket Contents......Page 8 List of Figures......Page 10 Acknowledgments......Page 12 Introduction......Page 14 Chapter One The Jazz Paradox......Page 28 I. Bloch’s Blacks......Page 30 II. Jonny’s Jimmy......Page 38 III. Parodic Primitivism......Page 50 IV. Nazi Neger......Page 54 Chapter Two The Jazz Machine......Page 58 I. The Jazz Machine......Page 61 II. The Principle of Looking......Page 65 III. Jazz Vulgarity......Page 71 IV. The Astaire Automaton......Page 78 Chapter Three The Monkey’s Trick......Page 84 I. The Monkey’s Trick......Page 86 II. The Track of the Divine......Page 91 III. Jazzman Mozart......Page 101 Chapter Four The Music of Fascism......Page 116 I. Jazz at War......Page 119 II. That Ol’ Wagnerian Rag......Page 121 III. Slave to Jazz......Page 127 IV. Sacrificial Jazz......Page 133 Chapter Five Jazz-Heinis......Page 140 I. The Inner Crisis......Page 143 II. The Nazi Princess......Page 146 III. Stop, Thief......Page 154 IV. The White-Face Minstrel......Page 164 Conclusion......Page 168 Notes......Page 174 Bibliography......Page 198 Index......Page 220