University of Texas to teach Taylor Swift Songbook alongside William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer

The University of Texas at Austin will now offer a class on Taylor Swift’s discography, the university announced on Wednesday. According to media reports, the Taylor Swift Songbook will be taught by English Professor Elizabeth Scala, under the liberal arts division of the university.

According to reports, the class will commence this fall and will be taught as a part of the Literary Contests and Contexts course. The 32-year-old singer’s works will be taught alongside literature icons like William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, Emily Dickinson, and S.T. Coleridge. The course includes Swift’s four recently launched albums – Red (2021), Lover (2019), Evermore (2020), and Folklore (2020).

The music sensation’s songwriting shall help introduce critical reading and research methods in the literature, as suggested by the course description. The course will compel students to study the Grammy Award-winning popstar’s music and its cultural contexts. It will require analyzing the works for poetic forms and styles, history, and other theoretical issues relevant to the contextualization of literature. Testing parameters for students include four written assignments, class discussions, and debates.




Professor Scala suggests that Swift uses rich literary traditions in her songs, including references and metaphors. She stated that the course would take an analysis of Swift’s works, which most of her fans do, to a sophisticated level, presenting the finesse in her songs via renewed vocabulary.

The University of Texas at Austin is not the first to offer a literary course on Taylor Swift’s songs. During the last spring semester, the New York University offered a course on the popstar’s relationship with music and society and her entrepreneurship journey. Swift was also invited as the commencement speaker for the end of the spring semester at NYU.

Taylor Swift is one of the most decorated singers/songwriters of the 21st century. The West Reading-born American megastar has won a record 11 Grammy Awards and an Emmy Award. Swift holds the record for most Billboard Music Awards (29) won by a woman and was included in the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time by Rolling Stone in 2015.