Why I teach a course connecting Taylor Swift's songs to the works of Shakespeare, Hitchcock and Plath

By Elizabeth Scala, Professor of English, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts

Unusual Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Title of course:

“The Taylor Swift Songbook”

What prompted the idea for the course?

This class is part of a group of introductory English offerings that focus on basic methods of literary analysis and research. It fulfills different requirements for potential English majors and the general student population, so I am always looking for news ways to engage them.

For a few years, I taught it as a Harry Potter course.…

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