Taylor Swift’s songs and personal life will be the theme of a psychology course at Arizona State University this fall
Students at Arizona State University can study the music and life of Taylor Swift, 33, for college credit.
The Psychology of Taylor Swift is debuting this semester at the Tempe, Arizona campus.
The course is being taught by Ph.D. student Alexandra Wormley, who hopes to inspire meaningful conversations that lead students to advanced psychology concepts.
‘The course is basically using Taylor Swift as a semester-long example of different phenomena — gossip, relationships, revenge,’ Wormley said, as news broke that the Snow on the Beach singer earns $6 million a month from her songs streaming.
She was quick to add that ‘the class is not a seminar on how much we like or dislike her — we want to be able to learn about psychology.’
Swifties rejoice: Students at Arizona State University can listen to the music of and study the life of Taylor Swift for college credit
The course started as a joke but quickly turned into an ingenious way to study the phenomena of social psychology, ASU News reported.
Not long after the Lavender Haze singer’s Glendale, Arizona concerts in March, her research assistants joked that they’d love to take a course on Swift.
‘I liked the idea and jokingly made a rough outline of what that sort of course might look like. I pitched it to my department and apparently they liked it,’ Wormley explained.
And the course will be laid out much like Swift’s Era’s Tour — each week will focus on a theme from one of the Anti-Hero singer’s albums.
Wormley will link the theme to a topic in social psychology. ‘We will be doing deep dives into very specific topics, so that students have some expertise in each of these areas by the end of each week,’ she said.
‘I find this method of learning much more engaging than survey courses that have to cover every topic within a semester.
When she was asked how she plans to illustrate the theme of revenge, she said: ‘Taylor’s sixth album, Reputation, is her comeback after disappearing from the spotlight due to conflicts with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
‘She enacts her revenge on them — and the broader media landscape — by dropping an incredibly successful album along with a stadium tour.’
Professor of all things Swift: Alexandra Wormley is teaching the course on the Maroon singer. She is a Ph.D. student in Psychology at Arizona State University
A joke at first: Not long after the Lavender Haze singer’s Glendale, Arizona concerts in March, her research assistants joked that they’d love to take a course on Swift. ‘I liked the idea and jokingly made a rough outline of what that sort of course might look like. I pitched it to my department and apparently they liked it,’ Wormley explained
All Too Well: The Psychology of Taylor Swift is debuting this semester at the Tempe, Arizona campus
Blank Space: The course is being taught by Ph.D. student Alexandra Wormley, who hopes to inspire meaningful conversations that lead students to advanced psychology concepts
Not a fan club meeting: ‘The course is basically using Taylor Swift as a semester-long example of different phenomena — gossip, relationships, revenge,’ Wormley said
The theme will help students understand why the concept of revenge can be so irresistible.
She continued: ‘But do they know why we like revenge? Do they know how we enact revenge? Social psychology can tell us.’
Wormley was also quick to point out that the course will not be ‘ be a three-hour fan club meeting’ and she hopes someone who isn’t a fan of the Karma singer takes the course.
She hopes that the topic of the course will allow students to ‘relate their course material to their own lives,’ which research has proven that ‘it increases comprehension and retention.’