Virtual Lightbulb Café | Bob Dylan: Prophet Without God by Jeffrey Edward Green

Would you like to be in a book group with fellow alums from around the world, reading works by Penn Arts & Sciences faculty? Hit the books and get ready to join us for the Penn Arts & Sciences Virtual Lightbulb Café: Faculty Book Series! Our fabulous faculty authors will discuss their new books, describing the inspiration and research behind each, and answer audience questions.

Bob Dylan has always been more than a musician. Whether as an icon of the social movements of the 1960s, a convert to evangelical Christianity publicly wrestling with his faith, or simply a poet of genius, Dylan has occupied a position of moral leadership for more than 50 years. In Bob Dylan: Prophet Without God, political philosopher Jeffrey Edward Green provides an overarching account of the significance of the 2016 Nobel Prize laureate’s political, religious, and ethical ideas. Dylan speaks to ideals that have animated earlier prophets—social justice, individual freedom, and adherence to God—but breaks from past tradition by testifying to the conflicts between these ideals. Green shows how Dylan has made novel contributions to the meaning of self-reliance, the quest for rapprochement between the religious and non-religious, and the problem of how ordinary people might operate in a fallen political world.

Moderated by

Anthony DeCurtis, Distinguished Lecturer, Creative Writing Program 

About the Author

Political Science Professor Jeffrey Edward Green is a political theorist with broad interests in democracy, ancient and modern political philosophy, and contemporary social theory. He is the author of two previous books: The Shadow of Unfairness: A Plebeian Theory of Liberal Democracy, which was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title; and The Eyes of the People: Democracy in an Age of Spectatorship, which was awarded the First Book Prize in political theory from the American Political Science Association. He is also the co-editor of the recently published volume, The Changing Terrain of Religious Freedom. Green is the director of the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy and an award-winning teacher.

The Virtual Lightbulb Café - Faculty Book Edition is generously funded by the Adolf and Felicia Leon Fund, which supports Penn Arts & Sciences programming and lecture series.