In Defense of University Courses on Pop Culture
Taylor Swift will have two new courses at both Harvard University and the University of Florida (UF) in 2024. According to Entertainment Weekly, the courses will explore her musical oeuvre, with the course at UF specifically situating her songwriting in the context of pop icons who preceded her such as Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, and Dolly Parton. While this news is understandably delightful for the Swifties, Taylor’s adoring fans, some people throughout social media are expressing their displeasure with institutions of higher education deciding to use resources to put on such a course. This reaction has become normal whenever courses of this kind are announced. Such analyses are misguided.
For the record, I have never been a Taylor Swift fan because her music is simply not for me. We were born in the same year, and I immigrated to America a year before her debut album, Taylor Swift, was released, so I have passively followed her whole career, especially after that viral moment with Kanye West and Beyoncé at the VMAs in 2009. Swift’s music and singing voice are both, as the kids say, mid. However, I continue to teach many Swifties, and they have successfully bullied me into appreciating her artistic value. While I prefer my favorite artists to possess nonpareil vocal ability and musicianship that demonstrates breathtaking virtuosity, expecting such qualities from Taylor Swift, I have learned, is the wrong approach to understanding her worth. She needs to be judged as a singer-songwriter—one whose greatness is in the lyricism flowing from her pen, not necessarily her polished vocal instrument. As a pop cultural icon, she does deserve to be studied.
For many years, the idea that college is a colossal waste of time has become the refrain (no pun intended) of pompous, unlettered podcasters and Internet personalities. They cite courses like the upcoming ones centered on Taylor Swift as evidence for their claim. They also talk about how it is possible to educate oneself by just watching YouTube videos and listening to podcasts. The idea that listening to marijuana-addicted cretins articulating deranged conspiracies about secret lizard people controlling the globe is equivalent to—or better than!—getting a college education is utter madness. Professors spend their lives academically studying the subjects about which they teach. There is more to learn from taking a university-accredited course centered on Taylor Swift than there is to learn from most podcasters who imagine themselves to be wise and informative.
With this said, it is vital to note that judging the quality of quirky college courses that have pop cultural hooks by simply looking at the title of the course is as wrongheaded as judging a book by its cover. While it may be the case that such courses are both pedagogically lacking and intellectually dubious, one would need more than the title of the course (or the name of the celebrity attached) to authoritatively arrive at such a conclusion. There is no reason why Taylor Swift should not have an accredited college course. She is hardly the first musical artist who has had such courses, and whether one likes her or not, it is an indisputable fact that she is an institution in modern popular culture and is clearly worth studying. The idea that themes in her music cannot be studied in a way that is academically rigorous makes little to no sense.
When quirky college courses are announced, especially when they feature musical icons, it is very important to note that such courses are unlikely to be basic listening sessions of the artist’s music for the entire fifteen-week semester. At some point, there does have to be some teaching and intellectually stimulating discussion occurring. Assuming such a course is taught by a PhD-holding professor worth his or her salt, there should be some writing assignments that students are expected to fulfill to pass. It is also safe to assume that there would also be some theory presented in the classroom that would otherwise bore students to tears if it were not attached to Taylor Swift’s music. It is a mistake to think that pop culture and pedagogical rigor are mutually exclusive. In point of fact, pop culture is a wonderful pedagogical tool to make subjects that students find boring come alive.
There is a reason why in my Judicial Process course, which I am currently teaching for the first time this semester, I recently introduced a Joey Swoll TikTok video when discussing the reasonable expectation of privacy in the Fourth Amendment. I have used music lyrics to explain theoretical concepts in ways that students have found helpful. While there are certain standards for academic writing, it is not sensible to think that pedagogy is only valid when done by tweed-wearing professors who drone on soporifically about Aristotelian ethics without any attempt to engage students.
Taking any university-accredited course on pop culture as an elective is not a waste of time and money, provided it is being taught by an educator with a dedication to serious pedagogy. People who tell themselves otherwise are simply misinformed about what many talented educators actually have to do in a college classroom to convey academic material to students who otherwise would not care. If one needs the name of one of the biggest pop stars in the world to get students to entertain academic abstractions, then so be it. When it comes to courses about pop culture, it is wise to reserve judgment until one has procured a copy of the syllabus.