Switchyard Keynote Speakers
Gender Queer:
A Memoir
May 31 | 7 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
An Evening with Art Spiegelman
May 30 | 6:30 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Ground Truth
June 1 | 7 p.m.
Greenwood Cultural Center
Maia Kobabe discusses Gender Queer, the acclaimed graphic novel about what it means to be nonbinary and asexual that has won awards and earned the top spot for the most challenged book for 2021-22.
Included in the Ideas Track & Full Festival Pass
Learn more here.
Art Spiegelman will be in conversation with Ted Genoways, editor of the new Switchyard magazine, for a probing conversation about book banning and art’s enduring obligation to tell us even the most agonizing truths.
Included in the Ideas Track & Full Festival Pass
Learn more here.
The 19th US Poet Laureate, Natasha Tretheway will unveil an entirely new work that brings her distinctive use of history and poetry to bear on Tulsa’s violent past.
Presented by the Black Wall Street Legacy Festival.
This event is free and open to the public. It is also included in the Ideas Track & Full Festival Pass
Learn more here.
Researching Into the Void
May 30 | 5 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Echoes from the Borderlands
June 4 | 1:30 p.m.
Horton Records Stage
Felon: An American Washi Tale
June 1 | 5 p.m.
Horton Records Stage
Rebecca Makkai’s works explore the mysteries and forgotten parts of history, from activist social movements to more intimate family histories, taking readers on journeys of exploration and recovery.
Included in the Ideas Track & Full Festival Pass
Learn more here.
Valeria Luiselli will collaborate with sound and film artists to create an immersive journey along the US-Mexico border.
Included in the Ideas Track & Full Festival Pass
Learn more here.
Reginald Dwayne Betts will perform a solo show based on Felon, a fierce, agile collection of poems that confronts the funk of post-incarceration existence and creates new forms from the redactions of his own court record.
Included in the Ideas Track & Full Festival Pass
Learn more here.
An Evening with Ilya Kaminsky
May 31 | 5 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Hidden Histories: A Conversation
May 31 | 12 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
A Reading with Katie Farris
June 1 | 10 a.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Ilya Kaminksy gives a performative reading at Switchyard will transform the way you think about language, sound, and beauty. He will be in conversation with Boris Dralyuk, Presidential Professor at TU.
Included in the Ideas Track & Full Festival Pass
Read more here.
Lawyer, author, and essayist Alex Marzano-Lesnevich mixes memoir with true crime in the Lambda Award-winning book, The Fact of a Body, which challenges us to pick through the tangled knots of our personal and shared histories.
Included in the Ideas Track & Full Festival Pass
Poet, translator, editor, and fiction writer, Katie Farris creates fluid hybrid forms that seek to carry readers across imaginative thresholds. She will be in conversation with Kaveh Bassiri, Tulsa Artist Fellow
Included in the Ideas Track & Full Festival Pass
Read more here.
World of Dylan Keynote Speakers
An Evening with Margo Price
June 2 | 6:30 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Noir Tones in 21st-Century Dylan
June 3 | 11 a.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Margo Price sits down with musician and journalist Jeff Slate to talk about the joys and agonies of songwriting.
This event is included in the World of Bob Dylan Track and the Full Festival pass.
Greil Marcus offers new insight into Dylan’s extraordinary recent work and the surprising cinematic turns it takes in “The Night We Called It a Day,” Triplicate, Shadow Kingdom, “Murder Most Foul,” and other spots on the Dylan map.
This event is included in the World of Bob Dylan Track and the Full Festival pass.
Museums Are Vulgar: Bob Dylan and Dishabituation
June 2 | 11 a.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Coming of Age in the Greenwich Village Folk Revival, 1954-1971
June 3 | 5:30 p.m.
Horton Records Stage
Cass Sunstein‘s talk explores the cultural and historical processes that transformed Bob Dylan from a niche folksinger with an unusual voice into an international star and Nobel Laureate.
This event is included in the World of Bob Dylan Track and the Full Festival pass.
With a mix of music, memories and Bob Dylan encounters, Happy Traum discusses coming of age in Greenwich Village during the folk revival, a mid-century cauldron of creativity.
This event is included in the World of Bob Dylan Track and the Full Festival pass.
Switchyard Panels
Twenty-First Century Book Bans
May 30 | 12 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Open to All: Fighting Book Bans in Oklahoma
May 30 | 1:30 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Free Speech on Campus
May 30 | 3 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Jeff Martin, Booksmart Tulsa
William Johnson, Director, PEN Across America
Michelle Simmons, Dennis R. Neill Equality Center
Jeff Martin, Booksmart Tulsa
Onikah Asamoa-Caesar, Fulton Street Books
Victoria Moore, Whitty Books
Adam Steinbaugh, Staff Attorney, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Jonathan Friedman, PEN America
George Justice, Provost, University of Tulsa
Mutant as Metaphor: The X-Men at 60
May 31 | 10 a.m.
Promenade Ballroom
What Was Lost: Constructing a 3D Portrait of 1921 Greenwood
May 31 | 2 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
On the Inside with Poetic Justice: Art and Stories by Incarcerated Women
June 1 | 11:30 a.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Danny Fingeroth, Comic Book Writer and Biographer of Stan Lee
Jimmie Trammel, The Tulsa World
R.A. Jones, Writer & Editor
David Surratt, The University of Oklahoma
Audra Burch, National Enterprise Correspondent, The New York Times
Randy Krehbiel, Staff Writer, The Tulsa World
Haeyoun Park, Deputy Editor, The New York Times
Yuliya Parshina-Kotta, Visual Journalist, The New York Times
Anjali Singhhvi, Graphics Editor, The New York Times
Lisa Loftus, Photographer
Ellen Stackable, Executive Director, Poetic Justice
World of Dylan Panels
A1. Dylan’s Early Influences
June 1 | 1 p.m.
Oklahoma Ballroom
A2. Dylan the Filmmaker
June 1 | 1 p.m.
Tulsa North
A3. Murder Most Foul: Bob Dylan and the JFK Assassination
June 1 | 1 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Robert Russell, Bob Dylan and the Stanley Brothers
Wayne Robins, Another Self Portrait (1969-1971): Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley
Jim Windolf, Bob Dylan and the Beatles: Disciples of Little Richard
Leighton Grist, ‘It Is What It Is’: Scorsese and Dylan
Ethan Warren, Series of Dreams: Dylan as Auteur
Godfrey Jordan
Danny Fingeroth
Jeff Fallis
Salvatore Fallica
Harold Lepidus
B1. Dylan and Ginsberg
June 1 | 3 p.m.
Tulsa North
B2. Woody Guthrie’s Expansive Reach
June 1 | 3 p.m.
Oklahoma Ballroom
B3. Close Encounters of the Bob Kind
June 1 | 3 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Stevan Weine, My Generation Destroyed: Dylan and Ginsberg in Witness
Sam Kashner
Holly George (chair)
Chris Buhalis
Court Carney
Michele Fazio
Mark F. Fernandez
Aimee Zoeller
Richard Bolton Williams Boltax
Collingsworth Swan
S.S. Solinsky
Malcolm Loeb
Ricky Vermont
C1. Locating Dylan
June 2 | 9 a.m.
Tulsa North
C2. Fame and Fandom
June 2 | 9 a.m.
Oklahoma Ballroom
C3. Creative Intersections
June 2 | 9 a.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Jon Lasser, Rumplezimmerman, Alchemy, and Dylan’s Bidirectional European Influences
Kathleen Hudson, Dylan and Texas: Stories and Songs
Rob Hurd, Romance in Durango and Tales of Yankee Power: Dylan’s Border Music
Bob Keyes, Robbed By an Autopen: Bob Dylan’s Use of a Signature Machine Isn’t Unusual, But It’s Still Fraud
Skip Dine Young and Bill Bettler, Virtue and Vice in the Reception of Dylan’s Gospel Trilogy
Rebecca Slaman, Come Writers and Critics
Bob Egan, Bob Dylan: A Life as Seen through PopSpots
Christine Jones, ‘Dollitics’ and ‘Dylantics:’ Folk Music and The Political Rhetoric of Dolly Parton and Bob Dylan
Cathy Chesley, Bob Dylan and the Algorithms of Creative Genius
C4. The Art and Philosophy of The Philosophy of Modern Song
June 2 | 9 a.m.
Horton Records Stage
D1. The Philosophy of Modern Song and the Ambi-Modernist Impulse
June 2 | 1:30 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
D2. Multimedia Dylan
June 2 | 1:30 p.m.
Oklahoma Ballroom
Elizabeth Cantalamessa, Art is a Disagreement: Authorship and Responsibility in The Philosophy of Modern Song
Graley Herren, Mr. Tambo and Mr. Bones, Play a Song for Me: Foster and Poe in Dylan’s ‘Nelly Was a Lady’ Chapter
Laura Tenschert, ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’: Bob Dylan’s Theory of Art in The Philosophy of Modern Song
Erin C. Callahan, ‘Lame as Hell and a Big Trick’: Dylan’s Comment on the Commodification of Art in The Philosophy of Modern Song
Court Carney, ‘The Laws of Time Didn’t Apply to You’: The Philosophy of Modern Song and the Zeitgeist of the Discontent
Jim Salvucci, ‘The Future for Me is Already a Thing of the Past’: The Seeming Nostalgia of The Philosophy of Modern Song
Steve Paul, ‘Put My Guns in the Ground’: Bob Dylan, Billy the Kid and Hollywood’s Western Delirium
Salvatore J. Fallica, Bob Dylan and Pseudo-event Culture
Malu Barroso, ‘I Contain Multitudes’: The Bob Dylan Cinematic Universe
D3. Deep Dives
June 2 | 1:30 p.m.
Horton Records Stage
D4. Dylan’s Rage
June 2 | 1:30 p.m.
Tulsa North
E1. Talking Dylan—The Bob Dylan Podcasters
June 2 | 3:30 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
Ron Radosh, Truth, History and Myth: Bob Dylan’s take on the Cold War trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Nathan C. Blue, Bob Dylan and ‘Jim Jones at Botany Bay’
Francisco Espinoza, I Got New Eyes: ‘Highlands’ and the Sense of an Album Ending
Paul Haney, Blood on Your Saddle: Bob Dylan’s Homicidal Voices
Matt Simonsen, Anger Through Life: Bob Dylan and the Tale of the Angry Epics
Richard B. Westlein, Twelve Rounds with Bob Dylan: The Pugilistic Poet
Craig Danuloff – Dylan.FM
Rob Kelly – PodDylan
Laura Tenschert – Definitely Dylan
Daniel MacKay – Hard Rain and Slow Trains
E2. Judgements
June 2 | 3:30 p.m.
Tulsa North
E3. Following Dylan
June 2 | 3:30 p.m.
Oklahoma Ballroom
E4. Archiving American Sound
June 2 | 3:30 p.m.
Horton Records Stage
D.J. Chatelaine, More Popular Than Jesus: The Prophetic Messages of Bob Dylan and The Beatles
John M. Radosta, The Loveliest and the Best: The Tapestry of Influence of Omar Khayyám’s Rubai’yat on the Works of Bob Dylan
Jeffrey Edward Green, Never Could Learn to Drink that Blood and Call it Wine: Bob Dylan as Prophet of the Postsecular
Toby Thompson, Interviewing Dylan’s Mom: Lunch with Beatty Zimmerman
Godfrey Jordan, N.E.T. 3025—Ireland 2019
Toby Daspit, Bob Dylan as Curriculum Theorist: A Theme Time Radio Hour Interactive Currere Experience
Barry Ollman, Paper Chase! Collecting and Connecting Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Bob Dylan
F1. 116 MacDougal: The Movie, Live Presentation Excerpt
June 3 | 9 a.m.
Promenade Ballroom
F2. Collaborations
June 3 | 9 a.m.
Oklahoma Ballroom
F3. One Upon a Time: Bob Dylan Illuminated through Three Temporal Frames
June 3 | 9 a.m.
Tulsa North
Ross Wylde
Dave Anthiny Buglione
Matt Westin
JJ Mason
Douglas Tjelmeland
Lynda Schneider (chair)
Scott Bunn, Recitations on Waitresses & Art Within Terry Allen’s ‘The Beautiful Waitress’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘Highlands’
Ray Padgett, ‘Pledging My Time’: Conversations with Bob Dylan Band Members, A Book Preview
Harold Lepidus, Dylan & The Dead Reconsidered: Goin’ Down the Road, Feelin’ Rad
Anne-Marie Mai, Time Slots in Dylan’s Songs and Visual Art
Nina Goss, Today and Tomorrow and Yesterday, Too: Rough and Rowdy Ways/‘Murder Most Foul,’ Bob Dylan, and Late-Style Studies
Robert Reginio, “Oh, Help Me in My Weakness”: Entreaties and the Dissolution of Communal Time in John Wesley Harding
F4. Rough and Rowdy
June 3 | 9 a.m.
Horton Records Stage
G1. Dylan’s Writing Process
June 3 | 1:30 p.m.
Oklahoma Ballroom
G2. Humor
June 3 | 1:30 p.m.
Horton Records Stage
Robert H. Cataliotti, ‘The Key to the Highway Is the Key to the Cosmos’: The Blues Aesthetic in Rough and Rowdy Ways, Shadow Kingdom, and The Philosophy of Modern Song
Fabio Fantuzzi, Rough and Rowdy Ways: Memory and History in Bob Dylan’s Late Narrative Songs
Garin Cycholl, (Tulsa) Time out of (COVID) Mind
Michael Sauve, Born in Time: Conditional Tenses and the Changin’ Lyrics of Bob Dylan
Jim O’Brien, ‘When I Paint my Masterpiece’ – Bob Dylan as Poet of the Renaissance
Owen Boynton, Bob Dylan and Enjambment
Daniel Radosh, It Takes a Lot to Laugh: Bob Dylan as Humorist
Harrison Hewitt, How Long Can We Falsify and Deny What Is Real: Bob Dylan is the Funniest Person Alive, and Why We Need to Talk About It
Danny Fingeroth, The Comic Book and Me: Bob Dylan and Comics
G3. Dylan’s Sound
June 3 | 1:30 p.m.
Tulsa North
G4. The Problematic Genius
June 3 | 1:30 p.m.
Promenade Ballroom
H1. I Read the Scriptures a Lot
June 4 | 9:30 a.m.
Tulsa North
Simon Harel, Ventriloquism and Influences in Early Dylan’s Voices
Michael Hacker, Know Your Song Well: Bob Dylan’s Singing Voice
J. Matthew Martin, Canon at Last? Re-visiting the Album ‘Dylan’ in Light of ‘Another Self Portrait,’ ‘Travelin’ Thru,’ and ‘1970’
Stephen Daniel Arnoff
Kathryn Lofton
Mark Montgomery French
Henning Emil Magnusson, ‘Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear’” Dylan’s Use of Old Testament Wisdom Literature on Time Out of Mind
Jeffrey Lamp, ‘God Said to Abraham’: Can Bob Dylan Help Us (Re-)Read the Bible?
H2. Infinity on Trial
June 4 | 9:30 a.m.
Horton Records Stage
H3. Violent Ends
June 4 | 9:30 a.m.
Oklahoma Ballroom
I1. Ancient Sources
June 4 | 11:30 a.m.
Horton Records Stage
Laura Tenschert
Susan Scarberry-García, A Vision of Wheels: Bob Dylan’s Rail Car and Leo Tolstoy’s Bicycle
Raphael Falco, Unheard Melodies: Ekphrasis and Possible Gaze in Dylan’s Lyrics
Scott M. Marshall, From Medgar to Bobby, Midnight Summer Blue–Fall, Winter, Spring–John, Malcolm, & Martin, in the Daylight Too
Michael Nadler, Eschatology and Manichaeism in the Songs of Bob Dylan
Sean Walsh
Catharine Mason, Bob Dylan Studies: Language, Literature, and Ethnopoetics
Nicholas Wagner, Torn Between Jupiter and Apollo: Bob Dylan’s Pre-Christian Phase
Christopher Mitchell, ‘Everybody Wants You to Be Just Like Them:’ The Menippean Satire of Bob Dylan
I2. Where Beauty Goes Unrecognized: Reconsidering Bob Dylan in the 1980s
June 4 | 11:30 a.m.
Oklahoma Ballroom
I3. On “Believing the Songs”: Bob Dylan as a Creative Spiritual Thinker Beyond Traditions
June 4 | 11:30 a.m.
Tulsa North
Erin C. Callahan
Court Carney
Harold Lepidus
Jeff Fallis
Steven Heine, A Bob Dylan Hourglass: Sayings for Daily Cycles
Taigen Dan Leighton, Bob Dylan’s Hymns
Brook Ziporyn, ‘God Did Not Create This Earth’: Grappling with Critiques of Orthodoxy in Masked and Anonymous