Belgian university to have new literature course on Taylor Swift’s song lyrics

It remains an undebateable fact that Taylor Swift, in her career spanning nearly two decades, has managed to garner a well-fortified fanbase. Now, the Ghent University in Belgium is launching a new literature course to analyse Taylor Swift’s discography, according to a report on CNN. Though several colleges in the United States are already teaching Swift’s poetic refrains, it is believed to be the first such course in Europe.

Curated by Assistant Professor and author of the blog Swifterature Elly McCausland, the course titled Literature: Taylor’s Version will be made available to students. Prof McCausland will use Swift’s work to engage with literature dating from the Medieval period to the Victorian, including the classics and also works of contemporary authors.

The course is open to all, even those who do not identify themselves as Taylor Swift fans. “The purpose of the course is to think critically about Swift as an artist and writer, and to use the popularity of her music as a ‘way in’ to a corpus of literature that may have shaped her work,” the syllabus says.

The students who enroll for the course will be graded based on a ‘reflection report’, which may be presented as a song, and a 4,000-word essay analysing one of the texts assigned to the class.

McCausland, who completed both her graduation and post-graduation from Oxford University and PhD from the University of York, told the publication that she has been considering Swift’s songwriting as an area that can be explored for scholarly analysis. “I’ll be delighted with everything that happens during this course. I’m excited to see what the students come up with,” she was quoted as saying.

This is not the first time that a pop star’s work has taken up space in academic circles. In 2016, the University of Texas had launched a literature course on Beyonce’s album Lemonade and its underlying connection to black feminism.