You Can Now Study Taylor Swift at University: What You Need to Know

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Taylor Swift is a global figure in the music industry. On her own, she has managed to change the game, as demonstrated throughout her career by speaking out against the injustices she has faced and taking a bold step forward with her re-recordings to reclaim her own catalog. Moreover, she continues to break records with her stellar «The Eras Tour,» showcasing her incredible consolidation as a global pop star whose influence spans both cultural and economic aspects.

And like any icon, she will indeed be studied at the best universities in our country, such as Harvard and the University of Florida. Both institutions will launch academic courses next spring aimed at exploring pop culture through Swift’s journey, through subjects like «Taylor Swift and Her World» and «Musical Storytelling With Taylor Swift and other Iconic Female Artists.»

At Harvard, the course will be led by professor, critic, and poet Stephanie Burt, while at UF, Melina Jiménez, an associate professor at the UF English Language Institute, will teach a curriculum that seeks to delve into Taylor’s discography, her timeless composition, and explore other great female artists like Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, and Dolly Parton. Both courses aim to use Swift’s legacy and trajectory as a starting point to analyze and critique various aspects of the cultural dimension of the music industry and related topics.

«We will move through Swift’s own catalogue, including hits, deep cuts, outtakes, re-recordings, considering songwriting as its own art, distinct from poems recited or silently read. We will learn how to study fan culture, celebrity culture, adolescence, adulthood and appropriation; how to think about white texts, Southern texts, transatlantic texts, and queer subtexts. We will learn how to think about illicit affairs, and hoaxes, champagne problems and incomplete closure,» as indicated in the course description for Taylor Swift at Harvard.

But these are not the only universities that have integrated courses about the artist into their academic catalog, as similar courses can be found at the University of California at Berkeley, New York University, Stanford, the University of Texas at Austin, or Berklee College of Music, among others.

The fact that Taylor Swift is studied even at universities is not surprising, it should be part of the core curriculum, if you ask us! Swift has sold more than 50 million albums and 150 million singles worldwide, and her «The Eras Tour» has already generated over 400 million dollars in gross revenue, breaking records that have caught the attention of the Federal Reserve, and even banks affirm that the «Swift effect» has positive effects on cities where the artist performs.

How about you? Would you like to study Taylor Swift at the University? We would love to go back just for that!