Daniel Fischlin is Professor and University Research Chair in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph in Ontario. He is coauthor (with Martha Nandorfy) of The Community of Rights – The Rights of Community.Ajay Heble is Professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph and an editor (with Rob Wallace) of People Get Ready: The Future of Jazz Is Now!, also published by Duke University Press. He is the founder and artistic director of the Guelph Jazz Festival.George Lipsitz is Professor in the Department of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of many books, including How Racism Takes Place and Footsteps in the Dark: The Hidden Histories of Popular Music.

"The Fierce Urgency of Now is a groundbreaking and, in many instances, breathtaking book. Its focus on the ways that musicians from many backgrounds and genres think about and enact improvisation as linked to issues of human rights, community, and freedom is innovative, and the argument that human rights are expanded and valuably reconceptualized by improvisational practices is even more inventive and generative. This book should be read by scholars and students working on social justice and the political, social, and visionary importance of expressive cultures all over the world."-Tricia Rose, Professor, Brown University, and author of The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop-and Why It Matters “This is a book which deserves to be widely read.” - Lou Glandfield (TLS) “A rather important book that seeks for the first time-or the first time with quite this level of intellectual rigor-to make clear the defining connections between improvisation and rights, and to suggest that improvisation’s basic heuristic, which is the capacity to discern potentials in any given situation, has a powerful social function.” - Brian Morton (The Wire) “The Fierce Urgency of Now is both a testament to the veracity of the rapidly growing field of improvisation studies, but also an impassioned, far-reaching, interdisciplinary investigation into ways that musical improvisation can activate new perspectives on rights discourses.”  - Jason Robinson (Journal of Popular Music Studies) "[This] collaborative effort offers not just a rigorous articulation of improvised music’s ethical potential but also a manifesto about how that potential’s realization should take place."  - Michael Borshuk (English Studies in Canada) "The Fierce Urgency of Now clearly stands out as a powerful and profoundly inspiring manifesto of great potential interest to ethnomusicologists seeking to engage issues of social justice through their scholarly practice." - A. Scott Currie (Ethnomusicology)

• Acknowledgments viiPrelude. "The Fierce Urgency of Now"; Improvisation, Rights, and the Ethics of Cocreation xiIntroduction. Dissolving Dogma: Improvisation, Rights, and Difference 11. Sounding Truth to Power: Improvisation, Black Mobility, and Resources for Hope 332. Improvisation and Encounter: Rights in the Key of Rifference 573. Improvising Community: Rights and Improvisation as Encounter Narratives 994. Improvisation, Social Movements, and Rights in New Orleans 1415. Art to Find the Pulse of the People: We Know This Place 1716. "The Fierce Urgency of Now": Improvisation, Social Practice, and Togetherness-in-Difference 189Coda 231Notes 245Works Cited 263Index 281

Daniel Fischlin is Professor and University Research Chair in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph in Ontario. He is coauthor (with Martha Nandorfy) of The Community of Rights – The Rights of Community.Ajay Heble is Professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph and an editor (with Rob Wallace) of People Get Ready: The Future of Jazz Is Now!, also published by Duke University Press. He is the founder and artistic director of the Guelph Jazz Festival.George Lipsitz is Professor in the Department of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of many books, including How Racism Takes Place and Footsteps in the Dark: The Hidden Histories of Popular Music.

"The Fierce Urgency of Now is a groundbreaking and, in many instances, breathtaking book. Its focus on the ways that musicians from many backgrounds and genres think about and enact improvisation as linked to issues of human rights, community, and freedom is innovative, and the argument that human rights are expanded and valuably reconceptualized by improvisational practices is even more inventive and generative. This book should be read by scholars and students working on social justice and the political, social, and visionary importance of expressive cultures all over the world."-Tricia Rose, Professor, Brown University, and author of The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop-and Why It Matters “This is a book which deserves to be widely read.” - Lou Glandfield (TLS) “A rather important book that seeks for the first time-or the first time with quite this level of intellectual rigor-to make clear the defining connections between improvisation and rights, and to suggest that improvisation’s basic heuristic, which is the capacity to discern potentials in any given situation, has a powerful social function.” - Brian Morton (The Wire) “The Fierce Urgency of Now is both a testament to the veracity of the rapidly growing field of improvisation studies, but also an impassioned, far-reaching, interdisciplinary investigation into ways that musical improvisation can activate new perspectives on rights discourses.”  - Jason Robinson (Journal of Popular Music Studies) "[This] collaborative effort offers not just a rigorous articulation of improvised music’s ethical potential but also a manifesto about how that potential’s realization should take place."  - Michael Borshuk (English Studies in Canada) "The Fierce Urgency of Now clearly stands out as a powerful and profoundly inspiring manifesto of great potential interest to ethnomusicologists seeking to engage issues of social justice through their scholarly practice." - A. Scott Currie (Ethnomusicology)

• Acknowledgments viiPrelude. "The Fierce Urgency of Now"; Improvisation, Rights, and the Ethics of Cocreation xiIntroduction. Dissolving Dogma: Improvisation, Rights, and Difference 11. Sounding Truth to Power: Improvisation, Black Mobility, and Resources for Hope 332. Improvisation and Encounter: Rights in the Key of Rifference 573. Improvising Community: Rights and Improvisation as Encounter Narratives 994. Improvisation, Social Movements, and Rights in New Orleans 1415. Art to Find the Pulse of the People: We Know This Place 1716. "The Fierce Urgency of Now": Improvisation, Social Practice, and Togetherness-in-Difference 189Coda 231Notes 245Works Cited 263Index 281