Harvard To Offer Course Titled "Taylor Swift And Her World" And Now People Are Asking If Colleges Are Real

According to Entertainment Weekly, Harvard and the University of Florida will offer college courses on Taylor Swift in 2024. "Taylor Swift and Her World" will be taught by Professor Stephanie Burt at Harvard.

Students will learn how Swift's songs intersect with literary classics, including works by Romantic poet William Wordsworth and American novelist Willa Cather. “We are lucky enough to be living in a time when one of our major artists is also one of the most famous people on the planet,” Burt told the Crimson recently. “Why would you not have a course on that?”

One fan on X (formerly Twitter) allegedly leaked the syllabus on the platform. The course description briefly introduces Swift's legacy, how she's one of the biggest artists in North America, and her songwriting that "takes in half a dozen genres, and her economic impact changes cities." They will also reportedly study "fan culture, celebrity culture, adolescence, adulthood, and appropriation," and "how to think about white texts, Southern texts, transatlantic texts, and queer subtexts" (as expected). I wouldn't be interested in half of these, but I'd love to be in class to learn about the psychology behind Swift's impact on her fans.

Roll your eyes all you want, but combining the old (in this case, literary canon) with the new (Swift's hit songs) sounds like a fun way to learn. There are far more ridiculous college electives out there.

Meanwhile, "Musical storytelling with Taylor Swift and other iconic female artists" will be taught by Melina Jimenez at UF. The UF course will reportedly dive into Swift's discography, "her evergreen songwriting," and other iconic female artists, including Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, and Dolly Parton.

Swift's impact cannot be denied. There are even more colleges offering classes on the pop star, Swifties, and culture, including Ghent University in Belgium, the University of Texas at Austin, Rice University, the University of California at Berkeley, Arizona State, New York University, and Stanford. The courses will use a dissection of Swift's work as an "entry point into criticism, analysis, and broader cultural issues and touchstones." Still, it is kind of strange to see courses about modern figures in school. The news has also sent the internet into a frenzy.

"are colleges even real at this point?" asked @kirawontmiss on X. "imagine graduating college with debt after getting a degree in a taylor swift course just to end up working a 9-5," he added.

"I majored in Taylor Swift why is nobody hiring me," joked @_1eppy.

Berklee College of Music has also offered a class on Swift's songwriting. The "The Music of Taylor Swift" seats sold out just as fast as her concerts, and students are eager to learn about the singer. The course has become so popular, says NBC Boston, that professor Scarlet Keys will offer two sections next semester to keep up with the demand.

The question is, are these colleges just glorifying stan culture and the obsession with celebrities, or is it a genius and fun way to learn?

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