This final day of the symposium will consider the broader contexts and legacies of Dylan’s long engagement with the Beats. This distinctive mix of art, music, poetry, and rebellion that grew out of this intersection played a key role in creating not just the counterculture of the 1960s, but the very idea of what a counterculture is and how artists position themselves in relationship to politics and everyday life.
Scholars are also now in a position to better assess the exact ways in which the Beats helped shaped Dylan’s songwriting practices—and thus helped transform pop music into a serious and enduring mode of cultural expression. These final sessions will also attempt to synthesize the weekend’s larger themes, while connecting them to urgent contemporary debates about popular culture, gender, race, sexuality, and creativity. The symposium will then draw to a close with a celebratory public concert and poetry reading on Guthrie Green.
Legacies
All times listed are Central Daylight Time (UTC/GMT -5:00 hours)
9:30am Breakfast
10:00am Keynote Address: Dylan as Poet and Songwriter
Timothy Hampton, UC Berkeley
“On the Beat: Modern Poetry and the Making of Song”
11:00am Break
11:30am Panel: Dylan’s Beat Writing
Jim Edwards, Writer
“Gonna Change My Way of Thinking: Kerouac, Ginsberg, Dylan and the Syncopated Search for God”
Anne Margaret Daniel, The New School
“The Early Poems of Bob Dylan”
12:30pm Lunch
2:00pm Panel: American Countercultures
Damon Bach, Texas A&M University
“Bob Dylan, the Beats, and the Emergence of the Counterculture”
Loren Glass, University of Iowa
“Everybody Must Get Stoned: Bob Dylan, the Beats, and the Cryptolect of Chemically Altered Consciousness”
3:00pm Break
3:30pm Closing Keynote: Dylan’s Kerouacian Trip
David Hajdu, Columbia University
“On the Road, Again: Dylan’s Kerouacian Trip”
6:30pm Old Crow Medicine Show Live at Cain’s Ballroom
Free ticket to the show offered to all in-person attendees