Time for a little shameless self-promotion. Kansas State University released its intersession class list today, so I thought I'd post the description for the one I'm teaching.
It's a deal too. Only 612.50 for residents and 1,586 for non- residents. Sign up today! ;)
Bob Dylan's Literary Contexts
Engl 295
05/19/2008 to 06/06/2008
9 am to 12 pm MTWUF
3 Undergraduate Credit Hours
Recent years have seen an increasingly high level of academic interst in the work of Bob Dylan. As Dylan's oeuvre continues to grow it is important to consider his place in the American arts, and his contributions to language are just as important as his contributions to music. The main focus of the class would be on the text of Dylan's songs. Close readings of the lyrics would be supplemented with readings from critical articles, chapters from book-length studies of Dylan, and Dylan's own commentary, through both interviews and prose.
A course pack will be used.
Class #94511
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2 comments:
I'd love to learn more about your course! I teach English at a community college and have offered to develop an on-line class in "dylanology." I have all kinds of ideas and plans, but am always looking for new ways of doing things.
Rebecca in Maryland
Rebecca,
I'm still developing the course, but I'm having a ton of fun doing it. They edited down that course description from about a three-page tome. Part of what they edited out is what I think is going ot make the course really unique; that is the "Literary Contexts" part of the course.
To open up the course I am going to have the students read some of the things that inspired Dylan in a general sense -- the first chapter of Woody Guthrie's _Bound For Glory_, some poetry by Rexroth, Gisberg, Ferlinghetti, etc. Maybe some of Carl Sandburg's _Rootabaga Stories_.
Then, for many of the songs we study I am going to bring in writing which seemed to have an influence, such as portions of the book of Isaiah for "All Along the Watchtower" or some of William Blake's poems that had an effect on "Every Grain of Sand." Along with this, I also want to include looking at how things like "Down On Penny's Farm" informed "Maggie's Farm" and how Charlie Patton's "Danville Girl" became "New Danville Girl" which was later retitled "Brownsville Girl." Furthermore, I might look at how Dylan has, in many ways, revised his own lyrics. Some of these are obvious, such as "Only a Hobo" becoming "I Am A Lonesome Hobo." Others are less obvious; the items being manufactured elsewhere in "Union Sundown" are fragmented (literally) in "Everything is Broken."
On the last day or two, I am going to look at literature Dylan has influenced. Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" is a shoo-in. Paul Muldoon has a few poems about Dylan. I have a book titled _Tangled Up In Blue_ which takes the three people living together on montague street and ends up being a novel about the two men having been lovers years before, and reunited the man coming into the relationship reveals he has AIDS. I plan on excerpting some chapters from that. There is a one-act play by Sam Shephard based on a series of conversations he's had with Dylan. Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" features an allusion to "John Thomas," perhaps from "North Country Blues."
I'd love to discuss this more if you would like. You can email me at mbg9393@ksu.edu. Discussion can only help.
Matt
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