New York University has introduced a Taylor Swift course and I believe I’m not alone in saying “sign me the fuck up”.
The course is part of NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. It’ll be taught by Brittany Spanos, a staff writer for Rolling Stone.
The class description says it will use readings, lectures and more to analyse “the culture and politics of teen girlhood in pop music, fandom, media studies, whiteness and power as it relates to her image and the images of those who have both preceded and succeeded her,” according to Variety.
It’ll also include topics of American nationalism, the relationship between social media and the pop industry, and copyright. Hooboy. That literally sounds like the dream.
Variety also reports that Taylor Swift herself has been invited to speak to the class, though it’s not been confirmed whether she will.
Sorry, but imagine have Taylor Swift as your guest lecturer. That’d be the one class you definitely don’t want to be earth-shatteringly hungover for.
Singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and possibly an academic? If anyone can do it, she can.
The class launched on Jan 26 and will continue until early March. Looking at Brittany Spanos’ Twitter, I’m desperately wishing I was an NYU student right now.
for all those waiting on updates on how the taylor class is going, i played dear john more than once and went on a too long tangent about gaga’s 2009 vma performance (i promise i had a point)
— brittany spanos (@ohheybrittany) February 3, 2022
The course is chaired by Jason King, a musician and music writer. He told Variety that introducing the class on Spanos’ suggestion was “a no-brainer”.
“[Brittany Spanos is] a Taylor fan but she also understands how to contextualize her culturally, and get students to think more deeply about her and her music through the lens of gender, feminism, race, and class, and other categories related to identity, and that deeper thinking is what this program is all about,” he said.
“She’s also an NYU alum and a former student of mine and I’ve watched her rise as a journalist and as a person and I’m so excited to bring her in.”
It’s not the first time a pop goddess has been the focus point for academia.
Back in 2015 Professor Omise’eke Tinsley taught a course called “Beyoncé Feminism, Rihanna Womanism: Popular Music and Black Feminist Theory” at the University of Texas.
“The wonderful thing about Beyoncé and Rihanna is that very few people have no feelings about them. People have strong feelings about them, some positive some negative,” she said at the time.
“This is also a course that students are going to have strong opinions. To find a way for them in a large classroom to be able express those opinions, I think is going to involve some creativity.”
She then went on to teach the course at Harvard University where she was a visiting professor.
And in 2017, the University of Tennessee introduced a course called “Dolly’s America” all about the OG country music baddie Dolly Parton.
Students of the class were later interviewed in the podcast Dolly Parton’s America, a show I’d deffo recommend if you’re looking for some aural enrichment.
I’m proposing that somewhere in Australia offers a course in one of our music icons. Where is “Discourses on Kylie Minogue and Queer Australia”?!
Academics, you know what to do.
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