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Harvard is teaching a course on…Taylor Swift? Yes! Harvard University, the one in Cambridge, Massachusetts has a new course about T-Swizzle whose Eras Tour has earned over 1 billion dollars so far. And whose latest album just broke multiple streaming records within hours of its release. Really, no Really!
Our initial reaction was to poo-poo the Harvard course because we happen to be congenital born poopoo-ers. But when we investigated the course syllabus, we found it fascinating, and an easy A it’s not.
Jason and Peter have enlisted the talents of Professor Stephanie Burt -who teaches the Taylor Swift course at Harvard - to not only discuss her class, but to also take a closer look at the woman, her music, the music industry she has upended and her rabid fan base, the Swifties.
IN THIS EPISODE:
• Professor Burt sold Harvard’s Administration on doing a Taylor Swift course?
• Is Taylor Swift just about skewering her x-boyfriends?
• Do you have a Hermeneutic Friendship with Taylor? And what does that even mean?
• Does Taylor use “lects”? And what does that even mean?
• How Swift’s social media consciously builds and deepens community with her fans.
• What lessons Taylor Swift may have learned from country artist and entrepreneur Buck Owens.
• Taylor Swift’s success: amazing business acumen or smart consultants?
• The songs a Swift novice should listen to first.
The Googleheim Quiz: Taylor Swift or the Sex Pistols? song?
Professor Stephanie Burt is the Donald and Catherine Loker Professor of English at Harvard University and has published various collections of poetry and a large amount of literary criticism and research. The New York Times has called Professor Burt "one of the most influential poetry critics of her generation".
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