MANILA, Philippines — Arizona State University is offering an advanced Psychology course inspired by award-winning singer-songwriter Taylor Swift in its upcoming semester.
"Psychology of Taylor Swift" will tackle topics in social psychology that feature in her work, life, and fans, including romantic relationships, fiction/escapism, revenge, and social development.
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"The course is basically using Swift as a semester-long example of different phenomena — gossip, relationships, revenge," said the course's teacher and PhD student Alexandra Wormley. "The class is not a seminar on how much we like or dislike her — we want to be able to learn about Psychology."
Wormley got the course idea from her research assistants who jokingly brought it up after Swift kicked off her "Eras Tour" in Glendale, northwest of Arizona's capital Phoenix, last March.
The student-teacher's personal relationship with the singer stems from her partner's sister who is a longtime Swiftie, "She played a huge role in shaping the topics of the course. Her enthusiasm is pretty contagious — so in the span of two years, I went from indifferent to being one of her top listeners on Spotify last year."
She broke down that the class would focus on very specific Social Psychology topics, allowing for students to have expertise in given areas.
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During each week of the course, Wormley will connect an album theme to a Social Psychology topic, citing as an example Swift's 2017 album "reputation" and the concept of revenge.
Wormley hopes non-Swifties will also take her course, "The class will be much more engaging if we can challenge ourselves to think from other perspectives, like that of a Taylor Swift hater."
"Research has shown time and time again that when students can relate their course material to their own lives, it increases comprehension and retention," she ended. "If that takes a little extra work on my part to think through how to connect Social Psychology to Taylor Swift, then that is well worth it. It makes the learning — and the teaching — more fun."
As of writing, the three-unit "Psychology of Taylor Swift" advanced lecture course for 35 students has no open seats.
This is not the first time Swift has been a subject or topic in the academe.
Last year, New York University's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music had a class on Swift herself while the University of Texas at Austin had a "Literary Contests and Contexts — The Taylor Swift Songbook" Liberal Arts course where Swift's songs were studied alongside writers like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keats, Dickinson, and Plath.
This year alone, Stanford had a winter quarter course called "All Too Well (10 Week Version)" dedicated to studying Swift's hit song of the same name, while the Berklee College of Music and Rice University each had courses on Swift's songwriting.
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