Jake Cohen
Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center
Thesis Title: Tout va mal: Americanization and the Cinema of Jean-Luc Godard
What Now: Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center
History & Literature was, for me, an invaluable education in teasing out unseen connections. My field—France & America—encourage me to seek out the novel narratives and marginalized histories that united the countries I studied. While I explored in depth the effects that revolution and industrialization had on the two nations, I focused on the 20th century and the staggering amount of transatlantic cultural exchange and conflict that transpired post-World War II. As the United States took an interest in existentialism, France adopted jazz, film, and other American exports as its own. Those topics and the strategies I used to approach them come in handy every day in my current job, where I develop new audiences for jazz by helping people appreciate and understand its history.