“I said remember this moment…”
And that’s exactly what the students and teachers of the University of South Florida’s inaugural Taylor Swift class were trying to do, as their first semester came to an emotional close.
Swift’s song, Long Live, echoed through the packed classroom as the Cultural Studies and Popular Arts class said their goodbyes.
It’s the same track that Swift played as one of the last surprise songs to close her record-breaking Eras Tour on Dec. 8
The LIT3301 course was offered for the first time in the fall semester, with more than 90 students signing up to study Swift's work as a poet and lyricist. Psychology freshman Madison White was certainly ...ready for it.
"I really like this class because it talks about more of the literary aspect of her songs. Because obviously I do analyze the lyrics but I don't know the specific references," White said, dressed in her indigo blue Midnights cardigan.
A trio of English professors taught the class. Dr. Jessica Cook, Dr. Michelle Taylor and Dr. Emily Jones agreed that teaching this class has made them feel like they’re part of a special intellectual and cultural community.
But, they weren’t always so vocal of their fan-status.
Being a secret Swiftie is a feeling that Cook, an associate professor of instruction, knows all too well. She was a doctoral student at USF when she started listening, earlier in Swift’s career.
“I thought, ‘I am an adult woman in her late 20s, why am I listening to this teenager sing these nostalgic songs about high school?’” Cook said. “They would be the songs on my iPod I’d be a little embarrassed about.”
But, when Swift's pop anthem, 1989, blew up, she said she could admit her Taylor Swift love.
However, Taylor – also an associate professor of instruction – says the three of them weren't ready to call themselves Swifties until a meeting to discuss the course with their department chair.
"And the teams meeting was called Swifties, and our Chair named it that. And I remember messaging Emily and Jessica and being like, ‘Oh, we're the Swifties now’," Taylor recounted.
And she’s never looked back.
The trio’s plan to team-teach the class consisted of switching between joint lectures and individually covering topics like the Southern Gothic era in literature, queer readings of Swift and the concept of the male muse.
“I think a lot of these Matty Healy and Joe Alwyn songs are about fame, and the idea that fame is its own kind of prison,” Cook said as she delivered her segment of The Tortured Poets Department lecture, as pictured above. “The prison is being Taylor Swift, and therefore the prison might also be being with Taylor Swift.”
Taylor also led a class with her husband, who’s in digital marketing, about Swift’s business strategies.
"We collaborated and talked about Swift as like a savvy Victorian novelist -- going back to the Brontes, actually, in some ways -- talking about all her re-recordings and marketing strategies in the context of 19th century publishing," she said.
The elective class, LIT3301, rotates topics based on interest. The idea for a Swift class came when the trio was having lunch one day in the month of – you guessed it – August.
But Jones, an associate professor, explains that while some thought the idea was legendary, others deemed it unnecessary.
"There was a letter to the editor in the Tampa Bay Times about how it was sort of an embarrassing thing for USF to be doing,” she said. “Like, back in the day, professors taught real things like Shakespeare and Milton and Jonathan Swift and the Bronte sisters."
But it seems there was an invisible string tying the team to this class, because Jones said that the professors each specialize in those exact literary works.
Other critics suggested that Swift wasn’t classic enough to be the focus of a college course, and several other artists would’ve been a better choice. Jones said this was valuable critique that reminded the professors of the class’ potential.
They shook off the critique and created a class with academic value and fun elements.
Every week, they picked a dress style that both the teachers and students followed.
Jones said her favorite week, “has got to be when we all dressed up as the witches from the willow music video. We all got matching mustard colored gold dresses and blue hooded cloaks, and came carrying these like Moon orbs to class."
Olivia Nolan, a biology and English literature double major, said studying literary figures throughout history and how Swift alludes to them was rewarding.
"This is something real. This is something that we can study in a university setting, that feels very legitimizing or validating."
She added that as a senior, she enjoyed being able to use the literary analysis skills she’s learnt over the past four years and apply it to a topic she loves.
And at the end of the day, Taylor, the professor, says, "they've also grown stronger as writers and thinkers and been exposed to so many things that they wouldn't otherwise have been exposed to. And I love that Taylor Swift was the thing that brought them to that."
The class will return in the spring semester, with three more sections added to accommodate demand.
Being a Swiftie no longer implies a trivial love of breakup songs.
At USF, you can study the world of literature, Taylor's Version.
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