Mainz Dylan Symposium, May 26, 2011 (Part 1 of 3 attended and taped)

Today, I attended the first three presentations of the Bob Dylan Symposium "Bob Dylan und die Revolution der populären Musik" (Bob Dylan & The Revolution in Popular Music) at Johannes-Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany (I left and will not attend tomorrow's presentations, because I "had enough").

Prof. Dr. Dieter Lamping (Mainz) opened the symposium with an introductory presentation "Zwischen moderner Lyrik und Pop - Bob Dylan" (Bob Dylan - Between Modern Poetry and Pop) which only served to show what results are achieved when academics in their ivory tower try to "tackle" the phenomenon of Bob Dylan.

On a positive note, Prof. Dr. Lamping NEVER even mentioned Clinton Heylin once, but stressed the importance of what he called "fan culture" for serious scholarship, and voiced a certain (rather academically-biased) astonishment at the quality of research to be found, for example, on internet "fan" sites.

Nevertheless, his remarks about Dylan's nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature (which Lamping feels he will never get and does not really deserve) made it all too clear, that academia, especially in Germany, has problems "justifying" Dylan research -- too many of his "laudatory" remarks had an almost apologetic undertone.

NOTE: 
© by Prof. Dr. Dieter Lamping, 2011
Presented for the purpose of study and research only (in accordance with "fair use" criteria).