The World of Bob Dylan 2025
July 24-27, 2025
Coinciding with the Bob Dylan Center‘s new exhibit, Tulsa will celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Dylan going electric at the Newport Folk Festival. This year’s conference will take place at the University of Tulsa and select venues in the downtown Arts District, and will host a diverse array of panels, roundtables, keynote speakers, musical performances, and creative experiences exploring all of Dylan’s music, art, life, and influence.
Keynote Speakers
Anna Canoni – “When Bob Met Woody: Hey, Hey Woody Guthrie, I Wrote You a Song” – Thursday, July 24 @ 11 a.m.
President of Woody Guthrie Publications and Woody’s granddaughter, Anna Canoni will kick off the conference on Thursday, July 24 with an opening keynote address, delving into the personal and professional relationship between Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. Learn more about Canoni and her talk here.
Adam Bradley – “The Rap on Dylan” – Friday, July 25 @ 2 p.m.
Adam Bradley’s keynote address will show how Dylan shares certain bedrock lyric practices with rap artists, including an extravagance of rhyme, a choice of words attentive to the currents of popular culture and the qualities of everyday life, and vocal delivery that often prizes rhythm over melody. Learn more about Bradley and his talk here.
Greil Marcus – “First Unto This Country: Bob Dylan and the Little Sandy Review” – Friday, July 25 @ 8:45 p.m.
Conference mainstay Greil Marcus will be presenting his keynote address as a listening session and conversation co-presented by the Bob Dylan Center and moderated by Center Director Steven Jenkins. For this evening program, Marcus will play and discuss a selection of songs favored in the pages of the Review and indicative of an essential tradition that, as he lined out in his 2022 Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biography in Seven Songs, have remained as a dynamic core of Dylan work ever since. Learn more about Marcus and his talk here.
Elijah Wald – “Bob Dylan, Blues Artist” – Saturday, July 26 @ 2 p.m.
Grammy-award winning musician Elijah Wald’s keynote address looks at Dylan’s roots as a blues artist and asks: What do we hear, and how differently could we think about Dylan’s later career, if we go back to that earlier identity and consider him a blues artist. This event is sponsored by a generous gift from Mary Herr Tally. Learn more about Wald and his talk here.
For more information on the conference, visit TU’s Institute for Bob Dylan Studies page which outlines how to register, the full conference schedule, and offers travel recommendations! Also, be sure to bookmark our home page to see news on upcoming exhibits and events at 101 E. Archer!