The Dylan Review, volume 2.1

Now out is the third issue (Volume 2.1, summer 2020) of the Dylan Review, the open-access online journal launched in 2019 and dedicated to the academic study of Bob Dylan’s work, and of which I am an editorial board member. The new issue is available at:
https://www.dylanreview.org/vol-2-1-summer-2020
(for the earlier issues, see entries on this blog for 19 July 2019 and 10 January 2020).

I believe this new issue is of a very high standard. As is only fitting, several articles home in on Dylan’s new album, Rough and Rowdy Ways: Charles Hartman offers a review from a musicological perspective; Richard Thomas draws out in fascinating detail the album’s multiple references to the Greco-Roman classics; and Anne Margaret Daniel focuses on the album’s stellar track ‘Murder Most Foul’ and its legion of allusions. Another recent release, ‘Travelin’ Thru: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15 1967-1969’, merits an informed review by John and Tim Hunt. Graley Herren enters the long-standing debate on Dylan’s Chronicles Volume One and its status as autobiographical fact or fiction; and there is a revelatory interview with Mark Davidson, librarian of the Bob Dylan Archive in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on the future of Dylan studies in the archive and beyond.

The issue is available as a single .pdf, and the individual pieces can be accessed in both .pdf and webpage form. The quality of the various contributions shows that even with the Never-Ending Tour put on ice, Dylan studies are not only very much alive, but ever-expanding!