A new Harvard University Taylor Swift course has proven so popular that the professor running it has launched a desperate search for more teaching assistants.
English professor Stephanie Burt has already seen nearly 300 students sign up for her new Taylor Swift and Her World class – and it is expected to have an ever-growing waitlist.
On Wednesday the professor took to X, formerly Twitter, to seek assistance, saying: ‘Our Taylor Swift course at Harvard is so popular that we need additional teaching assistants. If you live in the Boston/Providence metro, love Tay, & have *qualifications or experience to teach a writing intensive college course,* my DMs are open.’
She was quickly bombarded with responses from interested teachers and fellow Swifties, leading one social media user to joke ‘RIP your inbox’.
Burt’s new class is just one of scores that have been launched up and down the country in response to the world’s Taylor Swift obsession, with at least five schools now offering courses inspired by the 34-year-old songstress.
Professor Stephanie Burt is seeking teaching assistants to help with her upcoming English class called Taylor Swift and Her World
Nearly 300 students have enrolled in the class that will focus on Swift and it is expected to have a long waitlist
The new Harvard course will take place on Mondays and Wednesdays of the 2024 spring term from 12:00-1:15 ET.
Burt was already a fan of the singer before launching a lecture course at Harvard that focusses on the singer.
She told NBC News in December this is the ‘first time’ in her academic career at Harvard that one of her favorite music artists was big enough for the school to use its resources and dedicate a course to their discography.
According to the course description, students will study Swift’s music that includes ‘hits, deep cuts, outtakes, re-recordings.’
Those enrolled will also learn to consider songwriting as its own art – that is different from poems recited or quietly read.
Outside of songwriting, students will study adolescence, adulthood and appropriation, and how to think about white, Southern, and transatlantic texts.
Queer subtext will also be covered, which was a topic of debate regarding songs on Swift’s Grammy-Award winning album folklore.
Students will additionally study novels, memoirs, and poems that are important to the singer, including those written by Willa Cather, James Weldon Johnson, William Wordsworth and more.
Despite this being an English course, Burt will also look in depth at subjects that may have played roles in how Swift has affected the economy – so-called ‘Swiftonomics’.
Burt was a fan of Swift prior to getting ready to teach a course that will require students to study Swift’s music that includes ‘hits, deep cuts, outtakes, re-recordings’
The professor will also be teaching her students about fan and celebrity culture, which Swift has affected greatly over the last few years
The Eras Tour has made $5 billion dollars in revenue and fans are willing to spend $20,000 per ticket to see her in concert
The singer’s dedicated fans known as Swifties are key members in fan culture – the support and growth hotbed for the fan economy.
The Atlantis Press noted that social media provides various ways to increase fan culture, which is connected to the relationship between fans and the celebrities they follow known as fan economy.
One social media post that seemingly changed fan economy forever was Swift’s Instagram announcement of The Eras Tour.
More than six million Instagram users liked the post and sales crashed on Ticketmaster the day tickets became available on November 15.
The Eras Tour Ticketmaster fiasco angered Swifties but it did not do much damage to fan economy.
Swifties have spent as much as $20,000 on one ticket to see the singer live and her popular tour has grossed at least $5 billion.
It has led to a phenomenon called ‘Swiftonomics’ due to its infectious effect on local economies, as fans spend thousands of pounds on hotels, travel, food and drink and costumes in preparation for the event.
Fans and movie theater-goers who could not attend her shows had the chance to watch Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.
The movie that is now the highest-grossing concert film of all time, making more than $250 million at the box office.
The Eras Tour developed into the high-grossing concert film of all time that made more than $250 million at the box office
Swift’s tour contributed to her net worth being over $1 billion, but the musician’s music that will be studied in the course also made a difference.
The singer’s re-recorded albums she released over the last few years potentially brought in more than $8.5 million per month in streaming royalties.
Spotify, a popular digital music service, pays artists on a ‘pay per stream’ business.
Swift would earn $0.008 in royalties per streamed song and has made $6,393,140 from the three albums.
This number is expected to increase not only because of fans’ love for Swift, but because she will release more re-recorded albums in the future.
New York University was one of the first schools to introduce a Swift-themed class at the Clive Davis Institute in 2022 taught by Rolling Stone writer Brittany Spanos.
Berklee College of Music began offering a two-hour course in November.
And in the South, the University of Texas, Austin had a Swift-themed class in fall 2022, and Texas Tech University offered an honors course that resulted in several emails to teacher Sarai Brinker from students wishing to enroll.