More than 200 students at Michigan State University are learning all things Taylor Swift in a new integrative social science class offered this fall.
The course – called Society and the Individual: The Taylor Swift Phenomenon – explores how the pop star impacts society through various social science lenses. Think: How would an economist, sociologist and historian all analyze her cultural impacts?
In the fall last year, a Taylor Swift fan club on campus petitioned to have a class starring the artist. They organized signatures and submitted the request to the director of the Center for Integrative Studies and Social Science.
Social science professor Emily Muhich, who specializes in cultural history and pop culture, said she would teach the class.
“If we’re teaching these skills about integration, about different disciplines, about trying to understand complex social phenomenon,” she said, “this is a great way to do it because there’s a lot of student buy-in on it.”
The class unfolds in three units.
In the first, students learned about what Taylor Swift can control – including rerecording songs as part of a copyright dispute.
“We’ve talked about her style, different eras she’s been through, and the media influence she’s had and how that’s impacted her and other stars,” said Kendra Stone, a second-year history education student enrolled in the course.
Students also read articles from Harvard Law Review about U.S. copyright law and learned how to analyze legal situations.
They reviewed related historical problems like with Def Leppard and the Everly Brothers – and how Swift’s legal disputes changed the way contracts are now written.
The second unit started earlier this week and has a more psychological underpinning: the fan experience. Students will learn about in-group and out-group dynamics, why they exist and social interaction theory, Muhich said.
After introducing the unit on Tuesday, Muhich had her students make friendship bracelets and talk about what social signifiers – things like sports cheers, hand signals and shirts with logos – look like.
“One of the fantastic ways that Taylor Swift fandom has created a lot of inclusion and signifiers of being within the in-group was during the Eras Tour, where people would trade friendship bracelets with each other,” Muhich said.
In the third, the class will talk about the wider culture, like economic and environmental impacts of the Eras Tour and media narratives around public figures.
When putting the class together, Muhich said she questioned who was going to end up in the class. On the first day, students filled out a survey on how they joined the class.
The class skews female but not significantly, Muhich said. About half are committed Swifties, she said, but around 10% didn’t even know the class topic before the first day.
“When we have people coming from different backgrounds, when we’ve got people in a group saying maybe the Eras Tour wasn’t a net good for society, when they aren’t coming with the assumption that she is great,” Muhich said, “it adds more diversity to our group.”
Taylor Swift-related courses are gaining popularity at schools across the country, including The Academic Lore of Taylor Swift at Kansas University and a Swiftie poetry class at Kalamazoo College.
The Taylor Swift Phenomenon at MSU isn’t the only trendy or pop culture-related course offered at the university.
Muhich said one of her colleagues in integrative social science is leading “a great class on monsters” to break down how differing social science disciplines interpret social influences.
“There’s a lot of cool ways to teach these skills in accessible ways to students,” Muhich said.