ENG4934- – Spring 2027 – Gontarski

Bob Dylan occupies an unusual place in American literary and cultural history. He is simultaneously a songwriter, poet, recording artist, performer, filmmaker, screen presence, cultural icon, and literary author. His work crosses boundaries that are often treated as fundamental: between poetry and popular song, literature and music, text and performance, author and persona, history and myth, and the written word and audiovisual media. This senior seminar examines Dylan's work across more than six decades, from the early acoustic recordings and the emergence of the folk persona through the electric period, the experimental films and performances of the 1960s and 1970s, the religious and political controversies surrounding his work, and his later writing, recording, touring, and visual culture. Particular attention will be given to the question of what happens when we read songs as poems and performances as texts. The course will combine close reading, literary criticism, music analysis, film analysis, archival and historical research, and research into Dylan scholarship. Students will consider Dylan alongside poets, writers, filmmakers, musicians, and theorists who illuminate his work, including Allen Ginsberg, Arthur Rimbaud, Woody Guthrie, the Beat writers, the American folk tradition, blues and African American musical traditions, and traditions of popular and experimental cinema. The seminar is designed as a genuine senior capstone. Students will not simply study Dylan; they will develop the ability to formulate an original scholarly question, locate and evaluate secondary scholarship, conduct independent research, present an argument orally, and transform that presentation into a sustained research paper.
This course fulfills the Capstone requirement for the English Major, Upper-Division Writing, and Scholarship in Practice.