Jersey Boys: Philip Roth and Bruce Springsteen, from American Pastoral to Born to Run

7927
10 Sep 2019 06.00 PM - 07.30 PM Alumni, Current Students, Industry/Academic Partners, Prospective Students, Public
Organised by:
Richard Barlow

The literary and musical connections between Philip Roth and Bruce Springsteen, two of New Jersey’s best known artists. The presentation will examine their compositional habits, performance methods (one on the stage, the other on the page) and how they have handled aging. Unexpected parallels in their attitudes toward romance, depression and success will also be discussed. Does Springsteen’s three or four hour performances and Roth’s remarkable output – eight novels in ten years – reflect “manic insecurity” or an unstoppable drive to invent? Music and readings.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Educated at Rutgers and Cornell, Ira Nadel has concentrated on the Victorians and Moderns, while pursuing the critical and practical matters of biography. His research has led him to the island of Hydra for Leonard Cohen, back stage at the National Theatre, London for Tom Stoppard and into the archives at the Library of Congress for work on Philip Roth. In addition to these projects, he has published on Ezra Pound, James Joyce, David Foster Wallace and Virginia Woolf. He has also worked on three books with the San Francisco architect Donald MacDonald and continued his on-air interests in radio with, first, CBC Vancouver and now CITR on campus. He has lectured in England, France, Germany, Israel, China, Australia and, most recently, Korea. His awards include a Killam Research Prize, a Yale Beinecke Library Fellowship, a Dorot Fellowship at the Ransom Center of the University of Texas and, for 2016, a two month fellowship at the Australian National University, Canberra. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a UBC Distinguished University Scholar.