Which Pop Artist Deserves a College Course? Vote!
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Dr. Taylor Alison Swift is getting her second college course!
This year, Swift got her own class at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music and later received her honorary doctorate in fine arts from the university and delivering a commencement speech to the Class of 2022. Now, University of Texas at Austin students will be able to take a new liberal arts course taught by English professor Elizabeth Scala that will focus on the 32-year-old singer-songwriter’s decades-spanning songbook, available to students starting this fall.
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According to the online description for the course — titled Literary Contests and Contexts — The Taylor Swift Songbook — the star’s work will be taught alongside that of famous poets such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Wyatt, Coleridge, Keats, Dickinson and Plath. Required texts specifically include the 11-time Grammy winner’s four most recent albums — Red (Taylor’s Version), Lover, Folklore and Evermore — and a Spotify account is recommended.
Previous stars whose music and celebrity has warranted a dive into academia include Beyoncé (Arizona State University’s “Lemonade: Beyoncé and Black Feminism” among many others) and Harry Styles (Texas State University’s “Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity: Identity, the Internet and European Pop Culture”).
Of course, this begs the question of which other pop artist’s career deserves to be seriously studied in the halls of higher education. Mariah Carey launched a Masterclass on her legendary voice back in April, but surely the Elusive Chanteuse’s oft-overlooked skills as a songwriter could provide more than enough material for any studious Lamb’s master’s thesis. Or maybe Swift’s pal Ed Sheeran — who inspired her to aspire for an honorary doctorate in the first place — should be studied for his use of mathematical symbols as album titles.
Should a history department somewhere delve into modern pop history for a class on the Spice Girls‘ impact on third- and fourth-wave feminism or the exploitation of Britney Spears under her 13-year legal conservatorship?
Head to class and vote in Billboard‘s latest poll below!
