Jeffrey Edward Green: Why Bob Dylan's Prophecies Continue To Fascinate

The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

Content provided by The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://staging.podcastplayer.com/legal.

5M ago 1:04:07

MP3•Episode home

Few figures have literally and figuratively electrified American culture the way Bob Dylan has. He released his first album in 1962, won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, and continues to perform about 100 concerts a year at the ripe age of 83. His life is chronicled in the new movie A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet.

But what's the meaning—or meanings—of Bob Dylan, who sang at Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington, became a born-again Christian in the 1970s, and wrote a book called The Philosophy of Modern Song?

Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Jeffrey Edward Green, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the new book Bob Dylan: Prophet Without God. Green argues that Dylan's work embodies a uniquely American tension between commitments to individual self-expression, the pursuit of political and social justice, and being right with one's version of God. In this, he is akin to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and other figures who refused to subjugate their lives completely to a particular cause. Dylan's willingness to openly struggle with these conflicting demands—and his abiding interest in adapting past musical forms—helps explain why he remains so important to understanding where we've been as a country and where we might be headin'.

Video Editor: Ian Keyser

The post Jeffrey Edward Green: Why Bob Dylan's Prophecies Continue To Fascinate appeared first on Reason.com.

371 episodes

#Libertarian #News #Politics #Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie #Donald Trump