After Harvard, Stanford and New York University, students at the University of Basel can spend a semester studying the texts of Taylor Swift, like “bz Basel” on Tuesday reported. The two lecturers at the seminar agree: Swift is not too shallow for university.
Dr. Andrew Shields
Lecturer
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Andrew Shields is a linguistics and literature scholar. He lectures at the University of Basel and co-leads the Taylor Swift Seminar.
Rachael Moorthy
Author and co-lecturer
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Rachael Moorthy is a master’s student in literature and author of the postcolonial historical novel “River Meets the Sea”, which will be presented on April 16th at the Labyrinth bookstore in Switzerland.
SRF: You are offering a seminar on Taylor Swift in the spring. How did you come up with that?
Andrew Shields: My family and I got tickets to Taylor Swift’s concert in Zurich. I wanted to prepare thoroughly and thought to myself: This could make a good seminar.
Let’s talk about the content of the seminar: What will be examined?
Rachael Moorthy: We’ll be looking at one of her albums every week and analyzing the lyrics of the songs.
We feel resistance to justifying why we are doing this seminar.
Shields: The lyrics aren’t flat, even though we kept hearing that from the outside. Swift is a storyteller with humor and insight. She deals with literary genres, such as fairy tales or tragedies.
Which songs stand out from a literary perspective?
Moorthy: Literary allusions and puns are common in Swift’s work. In her song “The Lakes” she deals with romantic poets of the 19th century.
In one of their hits, “Anti-Hero,” there are connections to Greek mythology and Shakespeare. With the line “I’m a monster on a hill” she alludes to Medusa – the legendary figure with the snake’s head. This is considered a typical anti-heroine.
CNN writes that Swift is a kind of academic Trojan horse: If you put her name in the course catalog, it attracts many people who would otherwise not be interested in topics like text analysis. Also in Basel?
Moorthy: We feel a certain resistance to justifying why we are doing this seminar. We examine a literary work and use specialist literature to analyze song lyrics. I love Nietzsche and Derrida – but that doesn’t mean I use Taylor Swift to talk about them.
Taylor Swift influences so many people, that’s why we should analyze her content.
Swift herself and her work are worth analyzing – regardless of your opinion.
Is academic interest in pop culture a new phenomenon?
Shields: No, the so-called “cultural studies” that emerged in the 1980s made it socially acceptable for pop culture to be examined. It quickly became clear that this approach was worthwhile. An early example is Umberto Eco’s analysis of “Superman” and other comics.
Was there any resistance in the department when you proposed this course?
Shields: I asked the department management and received support. Some colleagues were surprised, but there was no criticism in the department.
Taylor Swift in numbers
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4 Taylor Swift can play her own instruments: piano, guitar, banjo and ukulele.
10 The 13 songs from the latest album “Midnights” reached the top 10 in the US singles charts.
229 The pop star has released songs so far.
3 Taylor Swift, who describes herself as a huge cat fan, has cats.
12 Grammy Awards have been given to Taylor Swift so far.
2 Millions of tickets were sold on the first day of advance sales for their “Eras Tour” – a record!
10 Her albums were in the charts at the same time: Taylor Swift became the first living artist to celebrate this record in 2022. Prince, Whitney Houston and David Bowie were so successful posthumously.
1 The subject of study at the US elite Harvard University in Boston deals exclusively with the myth of the artist: “Taylor Swift and her world”.
Moorthy: It’s exciting how you can be one of the most successful women in the world and still people trivialize what you do. When something like Taylor Swift’s music is so ubiquitous and influences so many people, then we should – especially at a university – analyze this content.
What feedback have you received from students?
Shields: We now have 77 registrations and will probably have to move to a larger lecture hall. This is extraordinary. It is important to us that the students can take a critical look at Swift’s work after the seminar. Critically, not in the sense of “Oh, I don’t like your music!”, but rather maintain an analytical approach.
The interview was conducted by Mara Schwab.
These are the lecturers’ favorite songs
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Andrew Shields: The first song where the lyrics blew me away was “Mine.” Just in the line “You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter” there is a novel and a biography in it.
And lately I’ve been fascinated by “Tim McGraw”: the chorus ends up being a letter to the person she loved at the time – this doubling of the relationship and the musical treatment of the relationship in a song that she wrote when she was 15, wow!
Rachael Moorthy: My favorite song changes constantly, I’m currently listening to “Long story short”. Many people focus on Swift’s romantic obsession, but there’s another one: she’s obsessed with making music. And as a writer who is constantly obsessed with creative subjects, I can relate to that.
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