While many college students find themselves bogged down with an overload of academic work, the students in one MTSU class find themselves jumping at the opportunity to read biographies, listen to folk music and watch a new biopic.

Adam Caress, an assistant professor in the Department of Recording Industry, teaches a class tracing the career of singer-songwriter legend Bob Dylan. This is Caress’s third semester teaching Bob Dylan and the Spirit of Creativity in person, as he’s taught it exclusively online in the past. This semester is different, though, because the class will watch the Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” together, using the knowledge learned in class to critique the movie.
At MTSU, professors who teach History of the Recording Industry often teach another class that specializes in one particular topic for a deeper dive. Bob Dylan and the Spirit of Creativity began when Caress was asked to develop such a class.
He chose Dylan because of his influence on folk and mainstream music and his knack for bringing socio-political content into mainstream music.
“I realized at some point that a lot of the artists that I liked from later eras, when you follow that thread back, it kind of went back to Dylan,” Caress said.
While writing his book “The Day Alternative Music Died,” Caress traced the alternative music of the ‘80s and ‘90s back to Dylan in many unexpected ways.
“Finding the roots of those things I was interested in kind of took me back to Dylan,” Caress said.
When discussing “A Complete Unknown,” Caress expressed his enjoyment of the film. He’s seen it twice in theaters — once with three generations of his family, and a second time with the alum from his previous Dylan classes. He plans to watch it a third time with his current students.
“I think what they’re going for is the spirit of the era and the spirit of Dylan,” Caress said. “If its goal is to expose Bob Dylan and his music to a younger generation, I would say it’s successful, especially with Timothée Chalamet playing Dylan.”

Although not typically a fan of biopics, Caress enjoyed the film and thought the movie successfully did its job. However, there were adjustments to the timeline. Dylan’s time spent with Woody Guthrie in the hospital, Johnny Cash’s appearance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival and Dylan’s relationship with Pete Seeger were not portrayed in the same light or in a timeline as they occurred in reality.
Caress also expressed appreciation for the era of Dylan’s career chosen for the film. With the movie based on the book “Dylan Goes Electric” by Elijah Wald, Caress said he expected the movie to end after 1966, with Dylan releasing “Blonde on Blonde,” touring with The Band and getting in the motorcycle accident that would lead him to leave the music scene for eight years.
“That’s kind of the fun of the class, we get to dive into all these different eras,” Caress said, excited to introduce students to music they potentially haven’t heard before, as well as expose them to music beyond Dylan’s most famous eras.
Students enrolled in the class will be immersed in the culture that followed Dylan through readings, interviews, documentaries and eventually viewing the movie to wrap up a semester spent with Caress and, by default, Dylan.
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