A University In The Philippines Is Offering A New Course About Taylor Swift
A PhD in Taylor Swift, anyone?
By Celine Low — 05 Mar 2024, 11:51 AM
With her immense popularity, Taylor Swift is undoubtedly one of the biggest celebrities today.
Besides filling up stadiums and arenas, the mega pop star is also filling up classrooms at a university in the Philippines, where couses dedicated to her are offered.
In January, the University of the Philippines Diliman began rolling out a Celebrity Studies: Taylor Swift in Focus class.
The new elective course has seen overwhelming demand, with more than 300 students registering for limited slots within minutes and prompting the administration to launch extra classes.
With a career spanning twenty years, the 14-time Grammy winner serves as the ideal subject for this course
The course, which examines the pop icon's stardom and her impact on global pop culture, is taught by a Swiftie — Cherish Brillon, a professor in the university's broadcast communications department.
According to Brillon, the course focuses 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.
Brillon's course is neither the first nor the last class offered that delves into the Grammy winner's journey in the music industry
Several universities in the US, including Harvard, Stanford, and New York University, have offered courses on Swift, analysing her songwriting and literary takes on her discography, among other topics.
Singapore's Minister of Health recently parodied the singer's iconic You Belong With Me music video to promote health tips:
