Refractions of Bob Dylan

A multi-disciplinary set of essays revolving around the routes of Bob Dylan’s cultural appropriations. Bob Dylan’s cultural production in the second half of the twentieth century – his songs, but also his changing images and self-fashionings – have informed and productively re/shaped images of America from outside and within. Refractions of Bob Dylan revolves around the routes of Dylan’s cultural appropriations. It investigates his own borrowings but even more so how Bob Dylan has been translated and refigured in culturally and regionally divergent spheres. This volume focuses on how and for which purposes Dylan has been used, depending on cultural and regional contexts. Some accounts look into Dylan’s own appropriations and fusions within his work, image or projection, such as the accusations of plagiarism in “Love and Theft”, his memoir Chronicles or the paintings of his “The Asia Series” from 2011. Other contributions investigate Dylan’s strategies to regain a certain degree of autonomy over the signifier Dylan, or to evade appropriations by others.The collection features analyses of appropriations of Bob Dylan in various European countries and multiple cultural traditions and contexts, and discusses various artistic transformations of Dylan and his work in film, music and literature. The book includes contributions from some of the most noted Dylan scholars, such as Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia), Stephen Scobie (Alias Bob Dylan: Revisited) and Clinton Heylin (Bob Dylan: Behind the shades revisited) and appeals to scholars and students of cultural studies, American studies, and Dylan fans alike. Bob Dylan’s cultural production in the second half of the twentieth century, his songs, but also his changing images and self-fashionings have informed and productively re/shaped certain images of America from outside and within. Refractions of Bob Dylan collects scholarly essays which thoroughly investigate the routes of Bob Dylan’s cultural appropriations. The collection looks at how Dylan has been used and interpreted by others, and how his work has been reworked into cultural expressions in culturally and regionally divergent spaces. Additionally, a number of essays look at what Dylan has appropriated and incorporated in his own work, focusing on questions of plagiarism, tribute, allusion, love and theft. Some of the essays originate from the Refractions of Bob Dylan conference in Vienna (www.dylanvienna.at) which took place around the 70th birthday of Bob Dylan, and included Dylan experts such as Clinton Heylin, Stephen Scobie and Michael Gray.