What happens when pop culture meets academic exploration? At MSU, it becomes a class.
This fall, students are learning through a brand-new interdisciplinary social science course focused entirely on the phenomenon of Taylor Swift. In ISS 210 Society and the Individual: The Taylor Swift Phenomenon, they are exploring the economic, political, environmental, historical, and gender-based contexts surrounding Swift’s career and cultural impact. We sat down with Assistant Professor Emily Muhich to learn more about how this course came to be, and why it’s more than just a fan favorite.
What inspired the creation of this course on Taylor Swift?
I previously taught an American Pop Culture section of ISS 210 (which I’m also teaching again this semester) so when a student requested a class focused on Taylor Swift, our Director Dr. Brandy Ellison asked if I would be interested in teaching it. I like Taylor Swift’s music but am not necessarily a “Swiftie”... but the great thing about ISS courses is that we are applying interdisciplinary integration tools—so we can work with many different topics.
Why do you think Taylor Swift resonates so strongly with college students today?
Taylor Swift has had an exceptionally long career with many different phases (it was the “Eras Tour” for a reason) so some students who engage with her music do so with nostalgia and for others her music is something new and exciting that they are getting interested in. She has represented and pulled from so many different genres and musical traditions that there is something for many different types of people in her discography.
Can you share an example of how gender or historical context is woven into the curriculum?
We will return to these two concepts pretty consistently across the semester. We started by looking at previous periods of American Pop Music (we listened to old Tin Pan Alley songs from the turn of the twentieth century; early Rock ‘n’ Roll; Hippie Folk Music; Pop-Country crossover) to try to understand the way that Swift pulls from these different periods of American pop music—twisting and reshaping these ideas and musical concepts to create something that’s new and speaks to the experience of so many people today. We will do the same thing with fandoms—talking about Beatlemania and the following that Elvis Presley had—as we move further into the semester.
As for gender, Swift speaks pretty consistently about it in her music so we will spend almost two full weeks exclusively exploring the concept. On the first day of class, students filled out a survey that included questions about what they associated with many different things, including male Swifties. Gloria Steinem wrote a great article once about gendering our film (think “chick-flick”) and we are going to spend a day overlapping her argument with their first day responses for male Swifties to examine our own biases and background.
What has the student response been like so far?
This question gets at the point I was most interested in last fall when our Center got the request: who exactly makes up the class. This is a 215-person class so we have a wide range of backgrounds. About half of the class took it specifically because they wanted a Taylor Swift class (some because they are Swifties and others because they thought it would be a fun class). About 15 students found out it was about Taylor Swift when they walked into the classroom on the first day, though, so we have a broad set of backgrounds—which, of course, is perfect for this type of class.
What kind of assignments or projects can students expect?
We will do a series of debates throughout the class (Do celebrities have a responsibility to advocate for change in society? How much transparency can fans expect from celebrities and when does it become exploitative? etc.) to practice applying the interdisciplinary topics we have been studying through Taylor Swift to the broader society. Those are fun workshop days where students will apply class material and homework readings to the issue at hand. For our final project, each group is going to do a podcast episode analyzing a music video that Taylor Swift has released through an interdisciplinary lens. Hopefully these will be fun ways for students to practice.
If Taylor Swift herself saw the syllabus, what part do you think she’d be most intrigued by?
I hope that she would be interested in hearing about how the students think through complex issues like artistic ownership and the faith so many of her fans have in her—or at least that is what I am most intrigued by in this class.
How does this course reflect the broader goals of the ISS curriculum?
Ultimately, ISS learning objectives are trying to help students understand a process (integrating social science perspectives around complex social issues), so that they can apply those skills to their own lives, future jobs, and their communities. We can teach those skills with many different topics. With Taylor Swift, specifically, we get to look at source analysis, the historical context for the music industry and the concept of fandoms, the legal framework Swift is working in, the environmental impact she has, all of the economic repercussions even a single stop on the Eras Tour had, parasocial relationships, and why so many of her fans feel that they know her personally. I called the class “The Taylor Swift Phenomenon” because it really is a phenomenon and we really cannot even try to understand it through only a single discipline.
My colleague, Dr. David Baylis, is offering a course on monsters. Dr. Seven Mattes offers a course on human-animal interactions. There are tons of other professors also using fun, engaging material through which students can learn interdisciplinary skills and integrate them around a complex topic—be it migration, food deserts, or even Taylor Swift!
How is the timing of this semester adding something special to the class experience?
One of the fun parts is that we know there is a new album coming (Life of a Showgirl), so we will get to apply our interdisciplinary analysis to the album (and the media reaction!) right away. We even got to start the semester on an auspicious note when Taylor Swift announced her engagement to Travis Kelce about two hours before our very first class period started—surely a good sign for the semester!
This is the first in a series about interesting ISS courses taught through MSU’s Center for Integrative Studies. Next up: Monsters & Society with Dr. David Baylis, coming in October.