Over 300 students sign up for Taylor Swift elective in UP, new class opened
Published February 29, 2024 7:24pm Taylor Swift academic world domination! Due to popular demand, the University of the Philippines Diliman has opened a new class about the life and artistry of Taylor Swift. With more than 300 students signing up for the elective course, limited slots were filled in within minutes and prompted the University […]
Tomas Kauer - News Moderator 
Taylor Swift academic world domination!
Due to popular demand, the University of the Philippines Diliman has opened a new class about the life and artistry of Taylor Swift.
With more than 300 students signing up for the elective course, limited slots were filled in within minutes and prompted the University to open an extra class.
“We’re going to treat Taylor Swift as a celebrity, which means we’re going to look at her from the lens of various ways of thinking such as the intersection of sex, gender, and class,” Prof. Cherish Brillon said after her first lecture.
As a Swiftie who became a fan during the Red Era and a Philippine media studies scholar, Brillon said she “is very interested in how Filipinos have appropriated Taylor Swift as an icon.”
Some of the two dozen students wore Swift merchandise as they attended the class, and decorated their notebooks and laptops with stickers featuring the American popstar.
“I would love to delve deeper into the societal issues that we face in connection to Taylor Swift,” said student Shyne Cañezal, a Swiftie since grade school.
According to Brillon, the said the course will focus on the conception, construction, and performance of Taylor Swift as a celebrity and how she can be used to explain the Filipinos’ and media’s relationship with class, politics, gender, race, and fantasies of success and mobility.
“Generally, the bigger question the course will try to answer is the Filipinos’ relationship with the idea of celebrity because we have such interesting practices and discourses around celebrities,” she said.
Courses on the pop star have been offered in several academic institutions such as Stanford University, New York University, and Harvard University.
Swift will be heading to Singapore this March and will headline six sold-out shows in the Lion City—the only South East Asia stop for her The Eras Tour—from March 2 to 4, and March 7 to 9, where Sabrina Carpenter will join as a special guest.
—Reuters
