Title: Playing the changes
First published: 1994
Description: In Playing the Changes, Craig Hansen Werner presents a polyrhythmic approach to the continuities and discontinuities of the American literary tradition. He focuses on the relationship between two superficially distinct traditions: European (post)modernism and African American culture in both literary and musical forms.

A primary contribution of Playing the Changes is its exploration of different "phrasings" of issues important to highly conscious African American artists from the late nineteenth century (Charles Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman) to the 1990s (Toni Morrison's Jazz).

A final sequence highlights the centrality of black music to African American writing, arguing that recognizing blues, gospel, and jazz as theoretically suggestive cultural practices rather than specific musical forms points to what is most distinctive in twentieth-century African American writing: its ability to subvert attempts to limit its engagement with psychological, historical, political, or aesthetic realities.
Subjects: History and criticism, American literature, African Americans, African Americans in literature, Music and literature, Intellectual life, Jazz in literature, African American aesthetics, Modernism (Literature), Music, African American authors, History, American literature, african american authors, history and criticism, American literature, history and criticism, 20th century, African americans, music, Afro-American authors
Places: United States
Time periods: 20th century
LC classification: PS153.N5 W38 1994