Bob Dylan in the 1980s

Erin C. Callahan is professor of English at San Jacinto College in Houston, Texas. She is the coeditor, with Court Carney, of The Politics and Power of Bob Dylan's Live Performances: Play a Song for Me. Court Carney is professor of history at Stephen F. Austin State University. He is the author of Cuttin' Up: How Early Jazz Got America's Ear and Reckoning with the Devil: Nathan Bedford Forrest in Myth and Memory. Jeff Slate is a writer, journalist, and rock-and-roll historian. He penned the liner notes for Bob Dylan's More Blood, More Tracks and is coauthor of The Authorized Biography of Roy Orbison. His catalog of interviews includes Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, and David Crosby.

Introduction: Telltale Signs Court Carney and Erin C. Callahan Part I: Reframing the 1980s These Times and These Tunnels Are Haunted: Bob Dylan's Archiving and Attic Cleaning in the 1980s Keith Nainby and John M. Radosta Reframing Bob Dylan's Projections of Authenticity in the 1980s: Gospel, Country Music, and Film-Star Texts Leigh H. Edwards Johanna's Heiresses Rona Cran Part II: Gender, Performance, and Persona Gender Performance in "Sweetheart Like You" Graley Herren It Was All Wet: Bob Dylan's "Clean Cut Kid" as Social Protest Paul Haney My Life Ain't No Circus: The Legacy of Hearts of Fire Rebecca Slaman Part III: Revival and Renewal Let the Good Times Roll: Bob Dylan Rediscovers His Muse with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Ray Padgett Part IV: Politics, Memory, and Nationhood Passive Protest and Consumer Charity: Bob Dylan and "We Are the World" Erin C. Callahan It's Morning Again in New Jerusalem: Bob Dylan and "Blind Willie McTell" in the Reagan Era Robert Reginio Farm Aid and Bob Dylan's Rural Nationalism Jason Tebbe Conclusion: Wiggle 'Til You Vomit Fire Court Carney and Erin C. Callahan

"For devotees of Bob Dylan, each of us has their Own Personal Bob. This beautifully written collection of essays is a fascinating glimpse into the labyrinth of Dylans, somewhere in which lurks the minotaur that is True Bob, or does he? My OPB is from 1966, but reading the great minds gathered here with their myriad interpretations of his work in the 1980s, I wonder if I should bump him forward a couple of decades. Regardless, Dylan emerges at the end of it as unfathomable and inspiring as ever; yet at the heart of him, he remains the Cloud of Unknowing. Or is he the mirror in which we see ourselves?"-Robyn Hitchcock, musician and author of 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left and Stranded in the Future "He may say he'd lost his way in the '80s, and we may often have concurred-MTV, 'We Are the World,' Live Aid and Farm Aid, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Dylan & the Dead, Saved, and Down in the Groove. But these searching, surprising, and splendid essays tell a new story, one of reinvention and reassessment, self-renewal and self-curation, return visits to erstwhile characters and riffs, endless deflections of his legend, and new sparks of commitment. This book is an absorbing and thought-provoking shot of love."-Eric Lott, author of Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class