Join us for a reading and rock and roll show rolled into one. Florence Dore is a Nashville native, daughter of the revered Vanderbilt philosophy professor, Clement Dore, and author of a powerful book, Novel Sounds: Southern Fiction in the Age of Rock and Roll (Columbia, 2018), which tells the story of how rock and roll helped shape the creation of Southern literature. Dore brings together the fiction of William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and William Styron with the music of Bessie Smith, Lead Belly, and Bob Dylan, and she shows how Southern writers turned to rock music and its technologies–tape, radio, vinyl–to develop the “rock novel.” Dore is Professor of English at the UNC-Chapel Hill. Her rock album Perfect City was released on Slewfoot Records (2001). Professor Dore will be joined by the Louisiana-born singer-songwriter Kevin Gordon and his Band. Together, they will present an evening of conversation, readings, and music. A book-signing and reception will follow. The event takes place on April 11 at 5:00 p.m. at the First Amendment Center Auditorium 1207 18th Avenue South, Nashville. Co-sponsored by the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and & Public Policy and the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities.
