Harvard University is set to offer ‘Taylor Swift and Her World’ course, led by Professor Stephanie Burt from the English department.
The new course will immerse students in the singer-songwriter’s world and will also explore her music, lyrics, as well as her profound cultural influence.
The professor believes that Swift is one of the great songwriters of our era. “She’s figured out how to write songs with broad appeal which not all great songwriters do.”
The instructor continued: “She’s learned to use those extraordinary gifts alongside other gifts and privileges of image management and fan interaction.”
Burt will have students do a lot more than write about their favorite songs of Swift.
“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,” the university’s website states.
Students will also learn about the singer’s predecessors in music and ‘read literary works important to her.’
Swift has solidified her statues as one of the most influential artists. In October, she occupied all ten spots on the Billboard Hot 100 and even made history by becoming the first artist to achieve six number-one albums following the release of her album, 1989 (Taylor’s Version).
Burt also told the Harvard Crimson newspaper: “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.”
Harvard is not the first college to introduce a course about Taylor Swift.
Berklee College of Music is now offering a class that covers the singer’s songwriting techniques to help aspiring artists write their own lyrics.
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