UP adds course on Taylor Swift

Heads up, Filo Swifties! The University of the Philippines is offering an elective subject on 12-time Grammy awardee Taylor Swift.

The elective will be launched under the BA Broadcast Media Arts and Studies for the upcoming second semester of academic year 2023-2024.

In an interview with a broadsheet, Dr. Cherish Aileen Brillon of the UP College of Mass Communication said the elective will focus on the construction and analysis of Swift’s performances and will be incorporated with the “media’s relationship with class, politics, gender, race, and fantasies of success and mobility.”

Integrating Taylor Swift into the academe is not new — especially in the United States.

Stanford University, for instance, has the course “All Too Well (Ten Week Version),” which provides an in-depth analysis of Swift’s hit song “All Too Well.”

A course titled “Psychology of Taylor Swift” will be set up at Arizona State University,  covering various topics from the psychology of her music to social media, revenge and romantic relationships.

Brilon, a confessed Swiftie, said the award-winning artist must be studied by Filipinos “in depth” because Swift is a signifier of an “emerging type of local fandom activism.”

Swift was the most streamed artist in the Philippines in 2023, according to music platform Spotify.