American university announces course on music star, Taylor Swift

Arizona State University has announced a course on the social psychology of Taylor Swift.

PhD student Alexandra Wormley will be teaching the course, titled Psychology of Taylor Swift – Advanced Topics of Social Psychology, at ASU for a semester this autumn.

“The course is basically using Taylor Swift as a semester-long example of different phenomena – gossip, relationships, revenge,” Wormley told the university’s news site. “The class is not a seminar on how much we like or dislike her – we want to be able to learn about psychology.”

The course will discuss what psychologists can learn by connecting themes from the Lover singer’s different album eras.

Using Swift’s 2017 album Reputation as an example, Wormley 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. The students know this – but do they know why we like revenge? Do they know how we enact revenge? Social psychology can tell us.”

The news comes days after officials at Ghent University in Belgium announced they would be teaching the course Literature: Taylor’s Version in the autumn. Musicnews