Swinging Toward Justice: Jazz, Moral Imagination, and Democratic Life

1 credits · Undergraduate

Jazz is pluralistic democracy in action, and if we want to understand how to create a thriving political community, we need to know how to swing. This course in political and moral thought examines the ethical conditions of democratic life through jazz as a model of collective action. Students engage classic and contemporary texts in moral and political philosophy alongside themes in jazz to consider questions of justice, agency, and solidarity in pluralistic societies. By treating jazz performance as a living laboratory of public life, the course asks whether democracy can 'swing: and how cultivating these habits might orient us toward a more just public life. This course is part of the Free For All: Freedom, Justice, and Citizenship FOCUS Cluster.