Harvard’s English Department has just announced a new course, to be taught by Professor Stephanie Burt — né Stephen Burt — on the life and work and miracles of Taylor Swift, a pop country singer well known for her garish and skimpy costumes, her semi-obscene pelvic thrusts this way and that way, and her very public romance (it has already lasted two whole months) with tight end Travis Kelce, complete with air kisses thrown between them at his football games and her concerts, to the delight of tens of thousands present for these premeditated displays of true-blue love. Already, hundreds of Harvard students have signed up, hoping to be selected to take this course. It may be the most oversubscribed course in the history of Harvard’s English Department.
The English Department — or rather, Professor Stephanie L. Burt, who created the course and will be teaching it — describe the course here.
In 2009, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me” on the radio, in grocery stores, and on TV. Harvard English professor Stephanie L. Burt ’94 still remembers the first time she heard it, describing it as so much “better” and “more compelling” than all the other pop songs that were playing at the time.
Fourteen years later, and Burt is still a diehard Swiftie. Her interest in Swift has followed her to the classroom. Next semester, Harvard’s English Department will debut the course “Taylor Swift and Her World,” taught by Burt. In this class, students will earn college credit for their deep dives into Swift’s lyrics, music, and influence, dissecting her catalog and reading a host of authors Burt finds relevant to understanding Swift’s artistry.
This is not to be a course on Taylor Swift alone, though god knows that would be more than enough for those Harvard undergraduates pounding on the doors of Warren House, demanding to be let into Burt’s course. No, it is a course on “Taylor Swift and Her World.” While recognizing the supreme importance of this neo-Renaissance starlette, Professor Burt hopes to examine, through the life and art of Taylor Swift, what it means to be human at a time like this. How can we exist on this giddy globe without the spiritual sustenance provided by our truest guides, who not so long ago were the mom and pop and hip-hop gangsta riffraff who divined and divided and provided our culture with all that was most necessary to survive in a world we never made, but that civilizational torch has passed from all who went before and now has so singularly and so obviously ended up in the gyrating lap of Taylor Swift, who has proven with her songs equal to the task of keeping us all afloat lest we drown in the detritus of this confusing age. Some old fogies may scoff — the kind who want English majors to read Shakespeare and Chaucer and Milton rather than cultural icons of the present — but they have lost that battle. That train has left the station. The drawbridges have been raised. Who, in truth, is more worthy of deep study by the students at Harvard than Taylor Swift, who both embodies and creates the spirit of the age, and has become our surest witness of what is past, and passing, and to come?
A course on Taylor Swift and Her World? Of course. The question is not “why such a course should be given now,” but rather, why such a course has not been given until now, when it has long been obvious that Taylor Swift, this nonpareil sweet singer who now bestrides the world like a colossus in thigh-high boots, and pulls up out of the deepest recesses of our beings an understanding of what it means to be human, or in the case of Taylor Swift herself, superhuman. She is the singular voice we most need to hearken to, and that we ignore at our peril. Where shall we begin her story? And where is she taking us today? And how will Taylor Swift, the philosopher-entertainer we most need in these dark times, lead us through her songs and live performances to the broad sunny uplands that beckon, where civilizational despair turns to hope? Take the course “Taylor Swift and Her World” to find out.
The course instructor, Professor Stephanie Burt, is also a fascinating character, that only the present age could produce. Just a few years ago Stephanie was Professor Stephen Burt, having been male since birth, but then he decided he really should be a she, and so, in 2017, Stephen Burt “transitioned” into being the female Stephanie Burt. Since 2007, first he, and then she, have worked at Harvard University, where he, and then she, became a tenured professor in 2010. In 2023, she, formerly he, was named the Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker Professor of English.
You can view Stephanie Burt reciting one of her poems — “Gymnastic Stephanie” — right here.
I did not think it could come to this. I see that I was wrong.
mgoldberg says
I’m looking at this guy girl and listening to this drek and thinking of that old song line… I think from F Zappa?
… What’s the ugliest part of your body…. doo wa doo
… What’s the uglist part of your body…. doo wa dooo
… What’s the uglist part of your body…. I think it’s your minddd, your minddd, I think it’s your minnddd
La la lala la la………
and this education for only 80,000 dollars a year…. what a bargain!
Mind watch says
This is just another symptom of a current sickly seemingly worldwide downward spiral of societal norms of what one thinks, says and does. Our minds do appear to be unhinged, and rampant self-serving desire has taken some individuals to the heights of lunacy. It seems that societal rules of behaviour etc etc have given way to individual wants and desires. This Professor Burt is living a self-indulgent, fantasy – and imposing her obsessional crush on Taylor Swift (who is now a cult sensation?) on Harvard’s English Department. What is more disturbing, is that Harvard is allowing it. There seems to be more acceptance and tolerance of outrageous individual’s desires. Somehow, in a way, it is similar in nature to the worldwide increasing reluctance of individuals, institutions and governments to oppose this ridiculous mind generated delusion based Islamic demand that everyone must acknowledge Islam’s (actually their) supremacy. You know at the end of the day, one begins to think why even bother to address all this nonsense.
Wellington says
The descent continues—at Harvard, in America and in the West at large.
Westman says
Agreed, Wellington. Wealthy parents pay to have their children in “them’s” course? The word with the most meaning in Burt’s monolog was “interminable”.
Rufolino says
Decadence preceding collapse.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Taylor Swift? Is she still current? I thought that GenZ had moved on to CardiB and Meghan Thee Stallion
Rarely says
Shouldn’t this course be through the Philosophy department? It could be joined by courses about Ozzie Osborne, Justin Bieber and other great minds of the 21st Century.
Arguments could be made to provide it in other departments or faculties.
Psychology – insanity.
Medicine – physiology.
Sociology – it could replace Basket Weaving 101.
The list is endless. But ENGLISH??? I think not.
Troybeam says
Complete dumbing down of American students, Taylor Swift is not an education topic worth a class on, speaks of a lazy instructor, just as bad was Justice Kagen taking a donation for the university from the Arabs then having a Islamic law building built to teach sharia law when she was dean.
James Lincoln says
So glad that I’m not attending college in today’s beyond crazy world…
David M says
Surely the miracle is that a bland & somewhat boring pop singer could become as popular as her? I couldn’t name any of her songs. I have heard her on the radio & she sounds like every other generic singer you hear nowadays. I read her concerts have grossed 1 billion dollars, I hope she gives some of her money away.
Pray Hard says
When universities become institutions of higher lending instead of higher learning. The corporate model is destroying higher education.
Brian Hunter says
One more reason nearly half of US corporations have removed degree requirements from their job listings. It won’t be long before a degree is seen as a negative by hiring managers. Universities have watered down their curriculum to the extent that a 4th grader from 100 years ago was better educated than current grads.
OLD GUY says
My father only completed his education through the 7th grade do to the great depression. And I can guarantee he was better educated in math, grammar, reading and writing than most college students today. He also knew how to work and do things.
somehistory says
My father finished the fifth grade; my mom the sixth. He was expert at reading and understand what he read; loved history books and devoured them. He knew everything one could know about farming…and it’s not just walking behind a plow and feeding the hogs.
My mom was a whiz at math and made every Lincoln scream before being spent. She had the greenest of thumbs and cooked like a chef.
Education today is not what it once was when it comes to the school system; but real education is still what it once was, even though baby boomers are ridiculed by the young generations who gleefully write about all that is bad about the boomers.
James Lincoln says
To your point, Brian, top US high schools in the 1950s produced graduates who were much better educated / informed than today’s college graduates.
Tragic, really.