“Who in the World You Think You Might Be”

On Friday, November 13th, 2015 at 12:15 p.m.

in the Loretto Library Learning Commons

Professor David Yaffe from Syracuse University will discuss:

“Who in the World You Think You Might Be”: Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen in Life, Love, and Song

David Yaffe, a nationally renowned arts critic and a Professor of Humanities at Syracuse University, won the prestigious Roger Shattuck Prize in Criticism in 2012. He is the author of Fascinating Rhythm: Reading Jazz in American Writing (Princeton University Press) and Bob Dylan: Like a Complete Unknown (Yale University Press). He is currently finish Joni Mitchell’s biography: Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell for Farrar, Straus and Giroux. His writings have appeared in many publications, including Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, The Nation, Slate, New York Magazine, The Village Voice, Bookforum, The Daily Beast, and other publications.

Praise for Bob Dylan: Like a Complete Unknown

“He knows his stuff.” – The New York Times Book Review

“Mr. Yaffe has excellent chapters … approaching at times the intensity of prose poetry.”– The Wall Street Journal

“Fascinating for obsessives who think they know everything and want to know more.” -Kirkus Reviews

“Steeped but not drowned in cultural studies … offers fresh and sometimes prickly insight about Bob Dylan’s art. His book will have you saying, ‘aha!’ again and again.” – Sean Wilentz, Princeton University, and author of Bob Dylan in America

“David Yaffe is to Bob Dylan what Andrew Delbanco is to Herman Melville and what Farah Jasmine Griffin is to Billie Holiday – a writer who authority is so vast and whose thinking is so fresh that he makes reading about his long familiar subject an act of discovery.”– David Hajdu, Columbia University, author of Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina & Richard Farina