The art of studying Taylor Swift: College campuses embrace themed courses

As Taylor Swift became increasingly synonymous with American pop culture, universities around the country have started creating entire courses dedicated to studying her lyricism and impact.

New York University’s Clive Davis Institute was among the first to offer such a class in 2022, with lectures taught by Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos. Others have followed suit in the semesters since.

Some courses focus on Swift as a business and marketing mastermind, while others analyze her storytelling techniques with all the detail and skill of poetry analysis.

Professors teaching Swift-inspired classes at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Florida and the University of California, Berkeley unpacked their motivations for building entire courses around the 12-time Grammy winner and her discography. They shared the learning objectives of their courses and how students can get an A in “Taylor Swift Studies.”

Harvard University

Name of class: “Taylor Swift and Her World”

Professor: Stephanie Burt, a poet, literary critic and professor of English. An avid Swiftie, Burt said she is “grateful” she can’t sing, or she “would have tried and utterly failed” to make a living as a singer-songwriter herself.

What’s on the syllabus? Students taking the course will be tasked with analyzing Swift’s discography as if they were doing a close reading in a poetry class, identifying rhetorical devices and other literary tools employed by Swift in her work. The syllabus also includes works that Burt chose for “thematic connection” to Swift’s music, including poetry about childhood nostalgia or girlhood, novels about being a performance artist, and essays or works of criticism about singing and songwriting. These works include “The Song of the Lark” by American novelist Willa Cather, selected poems by William Wordsworth, and an academic essay about Taylor Swift and “nostalgic girlhood” by Margaret Rossman. Burt said she intentionally selected work about “being looked at and having to incarnate femininity” that also engages with societal expectations women face to “be hot for men, love yourself and make your own decisions.”

Amount of Swiftie knowledge required: Burt said she expects more people taking this course to come in with some knowledge of Swift’s work than she does when she teaches a George Eliot course, for example. However, she asserts that you do not have to be a Swiftie to take the course or to succeed in it. Burt said this was the “first time” in her academic career that one of her favorite musical artists was also so widely impactful that Harvard’s resources would be well-spent dedicating a course to their discography, not to mention popular enough that students would be compelled to sign up.

How you’d get an A: Students taking the course will have to demonstrate their ability to write “skillfully and concisely” through a series of essays, said Burt. The first paper must be about a Taylor Swift song or an event in Swift’s career, the second about another literary work studied in the class, and the topic of the third paper is up to the discretion of each student. Burt said she hopes students develop a greater appreciation for Swift’s discography and “how it works on people who love it,” as well as a “more nuanced and useful toolkit for literary, cultural and musical analysis” that they can then apply to other topics they think are important or want to talk about.

UT Austin

Name of class: “The Taylor Swift Songbook”

Professor: Elizabeth Scala, a medievalist by training who specializes in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, particularly “The Canterbury Tales.” She called her Swift class a “contemporary turn” in her academic work and created an Instagram account to document the course. Her daughter, who is a “huge Swiftie,” gave her the idea to develop a class on Swift’s work during the pandemic.

What’s on the syllabus? Scala said she designed the course around the “formal techniques and literary devices” Swift uses in her music. The beginning of the class focuses on an analysis of several Taylor Swift songs, so that students can “get used to thinking about them structurally,” Scala said. This involves discussing the “anatomy” of a Taylor Swift song, where students have to go through the song slowly and talk about its component parts. This enables students to develop formal language to discuss her storytelling techniques, such as identifying a “repeated feature of the chorus” that changes the third time she sings it and discussing what that might signify. The course subsequently pairs analysis of Swift’s work with “analogous” literary works; for example, Scala pairs “...Ready for It?,” the opening track from “Reputation,” with a Christopher Marlowe poem, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” Students are tasked with comparing the two works, both of which employ a “fantastical situation,” like the metaphorical robber/heist scenario in Swift’s track.

Amount of Swiftie knowledge required: Though it is certainly not a requirement, Scala expects many of her students to be Swifties from the get-go. Swift’s popularity, she said, makes her work an accessible entry point for developing the critical analysis necessary to succeed in college-level English courses. Scala adapted the course from a class she used to teach at UT Austin about the “Harry Potter” books, which served a similar purpose of using a familiar and popular work to introduce students to literary analysis.

How you’d get an A: Succeeding in the course will require students to develop fluency when discussing and writing about the function of poetic structure in Swift’s work and the complementary literary material. “They’re carrying her music around on their phone all the time, with earbuds in listening to it. … I hope it gives validation to what they like so much about her writing and it’s not just a good song because they like it,” she said. “It’s a good song because it does this and it plays with language in these ways.”

University of Florida

Name of class: “Musical Storytelling With Taylor Swift and Other Iconic Female Artists”

Professor: Melina Jimenez, an English professor at UF with a background in linguistics. She is not a Swiftie herself, but said seeing her students engage in “deep discussions” about Swift before and after class spurred her to create the course.

What’s on the syllabus? Throughout the 13-week course (Swift’s lucky number!), students will explore Swift’s discography and the storytelling tools that make her work so compelling. Jimenez will ask them to pay particular attention to themes like “old flames, infidelity, aging, and double standards” in Swift’s music and discuss criteria for how popular music is “evaluated and situated in current historical context.” The course will also touch on Swift’s musical influences, examining works like “Jolene” by Dolly Parton and “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” by Kitty Wells, which Rolling Stone called “the Fifties equivalent of a modern-day diss track.”

Amount of Swiftie knowledge required: Many fans of Swift will be drawn to the course, but Jimenez said she “wants to learn what makes Swift so interesting for young people.” “And hopefully introduce students to artists that they might not have heard of before, or hadn’t given much thought to because they hadn’t spent the same amount of time with their lyrics.” Non-Swifties may have some catching up to do, but won’t be at too much of a disadvantage.

How you’d get an A: Students will be assessed through discussion board posts and responses, class discussions, and a group project instead of formal essays. They will also annotate two or three songs each week, which will inform class discussions. At the end of the semester, students will work in small groups on a final project, identifying themes in Swift’s discography and devising a project of their choosing. Jimenez said the course is “interested in how Swift and other songwriters construct narratives in their songs,” and successful students will be able to “synthesize common themes” in Swift’s work.

UC Berkeley

Name of class: “Artistry & Entrepreneurship: Taylor’s Version”

Professor: Crystal Haryanto, a Cal economics graduate, formulated the class and will co-teach it with current students. She graduated from Berkeley in spring 2023 after studying economics, cognitive science and public policy. A dedicated Swiftie, Haryanto’s favorite album is “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).”

What’s on the syllabus? The course is a DeCal, or a student-led course undergraduates can enroll in for credit. “It will be a cross section of literature, economics, business and sociology and I think that we’re studying her impact as an artist, as a whole,” Haryanto told NBC Bay Area. The upcoming course has generated so much interest that the course leaders introduced an application process to determine enrollment. Prospective students will have to answer a few questions to make the cut, including, “If you could have a 10-minute version of any Taylor Swift song, what would it be and why?” In addition to exploring her lyricism, the syllabus also includes sections on Swift’s business and marketing strategies, cultural impact, and the success of the “Eras Tour.”

Amount of Swiftie knowledge required: “You don’t need to be a Swiftie to enroll, but don’t say I didn’t, say I didn’t warn ya. You just might become one!” a disclaimer on the course website said.

How you’d get an A: The objectives of the course include identifying “how art and authenticity create enduring value and a viable enterprise,” according to the site. Coursework will include interactive lectures, readings and a final project. Students will be graded on their ability to engage with performance and interview clips, discuss Swift’s portrayal in the media, and write about the role she plays in society. “We’ll put her under scrutiny, but handle it beautifully,” the syllabus states.