College courses on the jet-setting climate change activist pop star, who backs Democrats, Taylor Swift will reportedly be offered at Harvard University, UC Berkeley, and University of Florida this spring.
Harvard professor and “diehard Swiftie” Stephanie L. Burt will be teaching a new course called “Taylor Swift and Her World,” set to debut this spring in the Ivy League university’s English Department, according to a report by the Harvard Crimson.
“In this class, students will earn college credit for their deep dives into Swift’s lyrics, music, and influence, dissecting her catalog and reading a host of authors Burt finds relevant to understanding Swift’s artistry,” the newspaper reported.
Professor Burt, who graduated from Harvard in 1994, told the Harvard Crimson, “I try to teach only the courses that I think our students can really use — either because students want them or because our curriculum needs them.”
Burt added that she plans to explore the “Cruel Summer” singer’s shift from the country genre to pop — which coincided with her move from Nashville to Manhattan — in the context of what the professor believes is the South’s shifting relationship with the rest of the United States.
“Taylor Swift is someone who establishes complicated and changing relationships to the idea of Americanness and to the idea of white Americanness and of middle America,” Burt said.
The professor believes that such concepts are worthy of study and analysis at an Ivy League institution.
“Taylor Swift is a good way to think about what it’s like to have a lot of eyes on you and to wonder what you do with your privilege,” Burt said. “To look around and ask, ‘I’m pretty ambitious and I got to this place when I was pretty young. What do I do next? What do I do with all this attention?'”
Meanwhile, at UC Berkeley, students will be offered a for-credit course called “Artistry & Entrepreneurship: Taylor’s Version” in the spring, according to a report by Los Angeles Times.
The class will be led by UC Berkeley graduate Crystal Haryanto, who seeks to address the alleged “stereotypical critiques” of Swift, as well as the pop star’s ever-increasing popularity and influence.
“I had the most fun dreaming up the unit on personas, perceptions, and personalities,” Haryanto told Los Angeles Times. “There’s so much to unpack in terms of the relationship between Taylor as an individual and an image in the media, and how she constantly reinvents her music and style.”
Similarly, University of Florida will also be offering a course on Swift called, “Musical Storytelling With Taylor Swift and other Iconic Female Artists,” according to a report by Bloomberg.
Instructor Melina Jimenez will oversee “13 gorgeous weeks of discussing Taylor Swift’s discography, with a focus on her evergreen songwriting,” according to the course description.
Students will also “draw parallels between Swift’s enchanting lyrics and works by other famous female masterminds” while dissecting themes such as “old flames, infidelity, aging and double standards.”
This is not the first time Swift has inspired the implementation of new college courses.
As Breitbart News reported, courses on Swift have also recently been established at Stanford University, Arizona State University, New York University, University of Texas at Austin, and Ghent University in Belgium.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X/Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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