This Land Is Your Land

Woody Guthrie: The folk icon would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year. For this reason, the workshop "The Myth of Woody Guthrie" will take place at the university on 4 and 5 November. Sarah Lee Guthrie, granddaughter of the great Guthrie, will give a concert in the library hall.

Woody Guthrie (1912 to 1967) is the well-known unknown of American culture. The folk singer's work is far more popular than he is himself. His most famous song "This Land Is Your Land" was played in a wide variety of contexts - for example during George Bush senior's presidential election campaign in 1988 or in 2011 as part of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. But how did it come about? This is one of the questions that the international workshop "The Guthrie Myth" will address from 4 to 5 November at the university (Haarentor campus, library hall). The organisers are the Oldenburg Americanist Prof. Dr. Martin Butler and Prof. Dr. Martin Pfleiderer, Professor of Musicology at the University of Music in Weimar. The workshop is funded by the German Research Foundation.

"Woody Guthrie is a multifaceted figure who is perceived very differently in different contexts," explains Butler. For some, he is the archetypal American, for others the political protest singer par excellence. He is also perceived as a poet, a farm labourer or as the embodiment of the maltreated victims of the Great Depression. During the workshop, Americanists, musicologists, historians, journalists and artists from Germany, Great Britain and the United States will discuss Guthrie's reception and examine the work and impact of the folk musician.

The workshop will end with the opening of the exhibition "This Land Is Your Land: Woody Guthrie 100" presented by the Institute of English and American Studies and the BIS - Library and Information System of the University. It shows photos, cartoons, drawings and sketches by Guthrie. Some of the exhibits are provided exclusively by the Woody Guthrie Archive.

Two exclusive concerts will be held to accompany the workshop. One of them will be performed by Sarah Lee Guthrie - granddaughter of Woody Guthrie - on Monday, 5 November at 8.30 pm. She will perform together with Johnny Irion in the library hall.

Sarah Lee Guthrie was born in Massachusetts (United States) in 1979. She is the daughter of Guthrie's son Arlo. She released her first solo album in 2001, which established her on the American folk scene. She has been working with her husband Johnny Irion since 2005. The duo recently released the album "Bright Example", on which they present an independent, harmonious Americana mix of rock, country and folk. The bridge to their family roots is also repeatedly built: Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion set some previously unpublished lyrics by Woody Guthrie to music, such as "There'll Be No Church Tonight" or "Folksong" - songs that have a firm place in the duo's live repertoire alongside other Guthrie classics.

The exhibition is free to attend. Admission to the concert is 7 euros, concessions 5 euros. Tickets are available in advance from CvO Unibuch.