A conference pays tribute to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen

The activity is free and open to everybody, and will take place on Friday morning at the Faculty of Library and Information Sciences.
The activity is free and open to everybody, and will take place on Friday morning at the Faculty of Library and Information Sciences.
Academic
(28/09/2017)

The "sala dʼactes" room of the Faculty of Library and Information Sciences of the University of Barcelona is holding -on Friday, September 29, from 9 a.m to 3.30 p.m- a conference on Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. “Words and Music: Celebrating the Songs of Dylan and Cohen” is the title of this symposium, which honours these two main figures of the culture of the 20th century. It also marks the concession of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Dylan (the first musician to get this award) and it pays a small tribute to Cohen now that his death anniversary is getting closer. The event will be free, and is organized by the English Literature Section of the Department of Modern Languages and Literature and of English Studies of the UB, in collaboration with the Vice-Rectorʼs Office of Arts, Culture and Heritage.

The activity is free and open to everybody, and will take place on Friday morning at the Faculty of Library and Information Sciences.
The activity is free and open to everybody, and will take place on Friday morning at the Faculty of Library and Information Sciences.
Academic
28/09/2017

The "sala dʼactes" room of the Faculty of Library and Information Sciences of the University of Barcelona is holding -on Friday, September 29, from 9 a.m to 3.30 p.m- a conference on Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. “Words and Music: Celebrating the Songs of Dylan and Cohen” is the title of this symposium, which honours these two main figures of the culture of the 20th century. It also marks the concession of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Dylan (the first musician to get this award) and it pays a small tribute to Cohen now that his death anniversary is getting closer. The event will be free, and is organized by the English Literature Section of the Department of Modern Languages and Literature and of English Studies of the UB, in collaboration with the Vice-Rectorʼs Office of Arts, Culture and Heritage.

The symposium reflects on the impact of the lyrics and work by Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen on history of music and literature. “The union of words with music is the basis on which literature was built as a category. Dylan and Cohen followed different paths to join music and words, but both are story-tellers”, says John Stone, director of the English Literature Section of the UB and Serra Hunter tenure-track lecturer. He continues: “While Cohen started singing when he was already a well-known and praised poet, Dylan is a folk performer who was adopted by the poets of the beat generation. The intertextuality in Dylan opens to Poe, Raymond Chandler, Scottish ballads from the 18th century and Ovid; and Cohenʼs heads to Dante and the Bible” .

Apart from experts in literature, this conference is aimed at the general audience. “Moreover, aiming to open the research carried out at the University, half the room capacity is reserved for high school students” says Stone. Seat reservation for students can be done through this form.

Program for the symposium

The conference will start at 9 a.m, with the reception of the vice-rector for Arts, Culture and Heritage of the UB, Salvador García, and head of the Department of Modern Languages and English Studies of the same University, Bill Phillips. Afterwards, Mark Ford, professor at the University College London, will offer the opening lecture, under the title “Bob Dylan and the Art of Storytelling”. The lectures will be given by university lecturers who are scholars of both musicians. Dylan and Cohenʼs literary sources; literature and musical traditions; their intertextuality; poetic forms and versification; or translations of their works, are some of the topics to be touched on.

This event, with a high festive image, will end at 3 p.m with a tribute concert by the Choir of Philology of the UB and David Owen, lecturer from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

The complete programme for the conference is available here.