This university is offering a 'Swifterature' course to study Taylor Swift's music

The course on Taylor Swift is set to debut in Ghent University.

Ghent University in Belgium is poised to launch an unprecedented literature course delving into the artistic depth of US popstar Taylor Swift's discography. Titled "Literature: Taylor’s Version," a nod to the artist's re-recorded album titles, the course is set to debut this autumn under the guidance of esteemed assistant professor Elly McCausland.

McCausland, renowned for her blog "Swifterature," which dissects Swift's themes, imagery, and linguistic nuances by juxtaposing them with literary giants like Sylvia Plath, Charles Dickens, and William Shakespeare, brings her expertise to a academic exploration.

"Highly prolific and autobiographical in her songwriting, Swift makes frequent allusions to canonical literary texts in her music," the class syllabus attests. "Using Swift’s work as a springboard, we will explore, among other topics, literary feminism, ecocriticism, fan studies, and tropes such as the anti-hero. Swift’s enduring popularity stems, at least in part, from the heavily intertextual aspect of her work, and this course will dig deeper to explore its literary roots."

McCausland's syllabus extends a warm invitation to all, including those who may never have encountered Swift's music. The essence of the course lies in its capacity to unravel the intricate layers of Swift's artistry, employing her music as an entry point into a tapestry of literature that could have influenced her creative journey.

McCausland is a distinguished academic with a Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Oxford University and a Ph.D. from the University of York.

Swift's songwriting had been brewing in her mind as a subject worthy of comprehensive analysis for some time, crystallizing with the release of Swift's latest album, "Midnights”.

Students are set to engage in a multifaceted evaluation process. This includes a "reflection report," which might even take the form of a song, and a 4,000-word essay analysing the significance of a chosen text from the course within the broader literary canon.

"I’ll be delighted with everything that happens during this course," McCausland told CNN. "I’m really excited to see what the students come up with.”

Notable institutions such as Stanford, New York University, Arizona State University, Berklee College of Music, and Rice University have introduced courses that delve into Swift's lyrical evolution, her impact on feminism, gender studies, and even American nationalism.

Swift is not the first popstar to get a course in colleges. In 2016, the University of Texas pioneered an English Literature course dissecting Beyoncé's visual album "Lemonade" and its profound interplay with Black feminism. The subsequent year saw the University of Copenhagen unveiled a course: "Beyoncé, Gender, and Race."