Teaching Bob Dylan: "Multitudes"

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Teaching Bob Dylan offers educators practical, adaptable strategies for designing or updating courses (or units within courses) on the life, music, career, and critical reception of Bob Dylan. Drawing on the latest pedagogical developments and best classroom practices in a range of fields, the contributors present concrete approaches for teaching not only Dylans lyrics and music, but also his manyand sometimes abrupt or unexpectedchanges in musical direction, numerous creative guises, and writings. Situating Dylan and his work in their musical, literary, historical, and cultural contexts, the essays explore ways to teach Dylans connections to African American music and performers, American popular music, the Beats, Christianity, and the revolutions of the 1960s, and more, and offer strategies for incorporating, and analyzing, not only documentaries and films about or featuring Dylan, but also critical and biographical studies on multiple dimensions of an American icons long and complex career.

Reviews

If only I had had this book when I began teaching college courses on Bob Dylan in the 1990s, my job would have been a whole lot easier. An invaluable resource! * Seth Rogovoy, author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet (2009) and Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison (2024) *
Its been a long time since Blowin in the Wind, but the generational talent of Bob Dylan continues to speak to us of what is past, or passing, or to come. Barry Faulk and Brady Harrison have gathered a range of scholars and educators to consider some of the ways in which Dylans work can be used to understand modern America in all its diversity and contradiction. The book is wide-ranging, multi-focused, and accessibly written; it also contains a generous archive of sources which can be used to take Dylans legacy to the next generation. Among all the hagiography and theorization, Teaching Bob Dylan is an essential contribution to Dylan Studies. * Gerry Smyth, Professor, Liverpool John Moores University, UK *
Teaching Bob Dylan is an essential tool for educators that reinforces the importance of the Humanities. The collection's essays masterfully explain how Dylans life and work help students engage with, investigate, and understand the complexities of American history and culture and their place in it. Through a multitude of pedagogical approaches, leading Dylan scholars share their experiences and practical lesson plans for readers to adopt or adapt to fit their curriculum and institutional needs. This book is the definitive resource on incorporating Dylan in the classroom. * Erin C. Callahan, Professor of English, San Jacinto College, Texas, USA, and editor of The Politics and Power of Bob Dylans Live Performances (2023) *
As a writer, artist, performer, icon, and now Nobel laureate, Bob Dylan is among the most influential figures in modern America, but still we struggle to bring his enigmatic work into our classrooms. This innovative collection gathers an outstanding group of scholar-teachers from different fields and institutions to provide a masterclass on teaching Dylans music. Sparkling with innovation yet deeply rooted in the contemporary classroom realities, Teaching Bob Dylan not only offers invaluable guidance to teachers, but insists, page-by-page, on the fundamental importance of Dylans work to our cultural past and future. * Sean Latham, Walter Professor of English and Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies *

Author Bio

Barry J. Faulk is Professor of English at Florida State University, USA. He is the author of British Rock Modernism, 1967-1977 (2013) and Music-hall and Modernity (2004), and he is co-editor, with Brady Harrison, of Punk Rock Warlord: The Life and Work of Joe Strummer (2016).

Brady Harrison is Professor of English at the University of Montana, USA. He is co-editor of Teaching Western American Literature (2020) and co-editor, with Barry J. Faulk, of Punk Rock Warlord: The Life and Work of Joe Strummer (2016).