• 20th- and 21st-Century American
• African American
• Cultural Studies
• Drama

Freedom is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties (Harvard University Press, 2003).

My first book, Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties, offered a new account of the cultural transformation of "the sixties" by putting the music of jazz -- and all the artists and activists inspired by the music -- at the center of that story.

For more on the book, including an excerpt, see the publisher's website at:  http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/SAUFRE.html

"Off Minor: In Pursuit of Thelonious Monk". Boston Review, Sept.-Oct. 2010. Using Robin Kelley's magisterial and definitive biography of jazz pianist Thelonious Monk as my jumping-off point, here I consider the surprising twists and turns of Monk's life and try to pin down the elusive intelligence of his music. Humor, wit and pathos were braided together in Monk's music -- and, as Kelley suggests, they were braided together in his life as well.

"A Body on the Gears" (review of Robert Cohen, Freedom's Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the Sixties). The Nation, March 29, 2010. The activist-intellectual at the center of Berkeley's Free Speech Movement, Mario Savio helped ignite campuses across the US and set the tone of the New Left. Yet Savio's own personal story has for too long been untold. Here I reflect on the roots of Savio's activism and on its legacy, given the crisis facing public higher education in California today.

"Suspended Sentences" (review of several books by essayist-critic Eliot Weinberger). The Nation, Oct. 19, 2009: 33-37. Eliot Weinberger has been experimenting in ingenious ways with the form of the nonfiction essay for over two decades now, bringing it into the orbit of poetry and magical realism, but it's his recent political commentary that has gained him greater renown. See my review of the "two Eliot Weinbergers" here.

"Gridlock of Rage: The Watts and Rodney King Riots." In The Blackwell Companion to the History of Los Angeles (Blackwell, forthcoming). Here I survey the historical literature on these two cataclysmic events, which have served as Exhibit A for any number of theories on the state of black America and the fate of America's cities, and offer some suggestions for future research.

"Off Camera: Civil Rights in the North" (review of Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North). The Nation, June 22, 2009: 25-31. Sugrue's encyclopedic history of the Civil Rights movement in the North seems likely to become the standard reference point for future discussions of the Northern wing of the movement. Here I try to encapsulate how the book, in an understated but powerful way, shifts our understanding of the movement, even as it has trouble meeting the narrative challenges it takes on.

"Protest Lit 101". American Literary History 21:2 (Summer 2009), 404-417. How to teach the dynamic between art and social movements? Here I meditate on the juggling act required in the classroom, reviewing two anthologies and one critical survey. Find my essay at http://alh.oxfordjournals.org.

“Sweet Martin’s Badass Song”. The Nation, May 19, 2008: 36-41. In this omnibus review of several new books on Martin Luther King's life, I reflect on some less-known aspects of King: his skill as a rhetorician, a speaker with a keen ability to tune his message to the needs of his different audiences, and his commitment to remedying class inequality in America. See my essay at: http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/50165.html

“Brazil’s Dreamer: The Disenchantment and Reenchantment of Chico Buarque”. Boston Review, June/July 2007, 35-38. Working at the crossroads of bossa nova and Brecht, Carnival and Kafka, Chico Buarque is perhaps Brazil’s most celebrated living artist; he was once called “the man every woman wanted to marry and every man wanted to emulate.” Here’s my appraisal of his most recent album and his three most recent novels at: http://bostonreview.net/BR32.4/article_saul.php

“On the Lower Frequencies: Rethinking the Black Power Movement”. Harper’s Magazine, December 2006, 92-98. More and more historians are starting to question the morality play that has structured the way we remember the Civil Rights and Black Power movements – and I have to agree with the impulse, though it makes the Black Power movement all the more difficult to encapsulate in an image or catchphrase. See my review (available to Harper’s subscribers) of two recent Black Power books at: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/12/0081318

"Fade to White”. Bookforum, Oct./Nov. 2005, 41-43.This essay, which reconsiders the deaths at Jonestown and the lead-up to that tragedy, is available at Rebecca Moore’s extensive website on the Peoples Temple at: http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/JonestownReport/Volume7/11-02f-Saul.pdf

"An Uneasy Embrace" (Review of Chen Shi-Zheng, "Peach Blossom Fan" at CalArts). Theater, 2005 (35:1), 98-101. Chinese-born director Chen Shi-Zheng, in collaboration with Magnetic Fields songwriter Stephen Merritt and playwright Edward Mast, produced a postmodern musical version of Kung Shang-Ren’s 1699 play. See my review at: http://theater.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/citation/35/1/98

“The Seductions of Caetano Veloso”. Raritan, Spring 2005, 45-69.Caetano Veloso is one of the world’s great songwriters, a musician who has nimbly managed to be both an unstoppable provocateur and an expert craftsman of love songs. Here’s a one-stop introduction to Veloso’s music and the Brazilian cultural revolution he helped spark.(Article available via WilsonWeb)

"The Devil and Henry Dumas". Boston Review, Oct.-Nov. 2004. Writer Henry Dumas—fantasist, fabulist, dark comedian—offers another perspective on the character of the Black Arts Movement. See my review of his short stories at: http://www.bostonreview.net/BR29.5/saul.html

“’Mirage or No Mirage’: Reading Los Angeles”. Boston Review, Dec. 2003-Jan. 2004, 41-44.A consideration of the mythologies of Los Angeles, inspired by David Ulin’s edited collection Writing Los Angeles:
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR28.6/saul.html

Review of Ruben Martinez, Crossing Over: A Family on the Migrant Trail, Boston Review, February-March 2002. 62-63. Martinez’s book offers an insightful look at the lives of Mexican migrants — and a vivid portrayal of how globalization works on the human scale, in small-towns of both Mexico and the US. See my review at: http://www.bostonreview.net/BR27.1/saul.html

“Outrageous Freedom: Charles Mingus and the Invention of the Jazz Workshop”. American Quarterly, Fall 2001, 387-419. An early version of the argument from Freedom Is, Freedom Ain’t, available for Project Muse subscribers at: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_quarterly/v053/53.3saul.html

"Mysteries of the Postmodern Deep: Laurie Anderson's Songs and Stories from Moby Dick," Theater 30:2 (Summer 2000). 160-163.I can’t help loving the work of Laurie Anderson, even when I’m mystified or frustrated by some of its choices. Here’s my ambivalent consideration of her version of Melville’s Moby Dick — available to Project Muse subscribers at: http://muse.uq.edu.au/journals/theater/v030/30.2saul.html

I've spent the last several years researching and now writing a biography of the comedian Richard Pryor (HarperCollins, 2013). The book meditates on the roots and innovations of Pryor's comedy, untangling his relationships with the likes of Bill Cosby, Lily Tomlin, Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder and others. It also suggests that -- as wild as Pryor's life may have seemed from his onstage act, and from the baroque acts of self-destruction that he was famous for -- the true tale of his life is wilder still, and even more affecting.

Spring, 2013

Fall, 2012

Spring, 2012