Swifties rejoice! The University of Texas is the latest institution to allow students to study the works of Taylor Swift alongside literary greats for one of its undergraduate courses this year.
The university, based in Austin, will offer students "The Taylor Swift Songbook" this fall, which will teach Swift's lyrics along with the works of Shakespeare, John Keats, and Robert Frost.
The liberal arts course follows another class offered at New York University, where Swift was granted an honorary doctorate last year, and Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., which will also offer a course this fall.
English Professor Elizabeth Scala, a Swift fan herself, wants to use the 32-year-old songstress' lyrics to teach the course through a more contemporary lens.
"My job is to teach those basic skills of critical reading, research, writing, in an interesting and compelling way to [the students]. And so the way that I do that is to sneak some traditional literature in with something they really like reading, but also allowing them to interpret things that matter to them. And so that's really why I'm teaching a course on Taylor Swift," Scala told CTV National News during a video interview on Monday.
Scala hopes her students will learn to apply the same thorough examination they use to analyze Swift’s songs to other poetical works.
"She's really linguistically sophisticated in some of her songs. And what I want students to be able to do is, find the linguistic sophistication, pull it out, analyze it as evidence, maybe compare it to something else that they might not be so interested in working on on its own, and present that in good writing," Scala said.
"That's not that different from what I do with the 'Canterbury Tales'."
The course will focus on Swift's more recent albums, with songs like "All Too Well," and "Red" on the syllabus, while discussing gender, literary devices, history and linguistic traditions, and the influence of fans on artists and writers, among other topics.
Scala has for the class to be able to communicate with her students, and other Swift fans, much in the way the decorated artist herself does.
Swift has been known to leave "Easter Eggs" for fans in her music and messages, communicating with them through cryptic messages and countdowns to new releases.
Swift set the internet ablaze earlier this week with a surprise appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards, and the announcement that her 10th studio album, "Midnights," will be released in October.
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Â鶹´«Ã½ Montreal at Six for Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024 with anchor Matt Gilmour.
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