The end of the world is coming

Taylor Swift class at Stanford: The Student Initiated Course program is likely to be one of the most popular on campus as rising sophomore Ava Jeffs is set to teach a class about the art of songwriting that explores the musician’s discography. It’s a subject she knows well.

It’s been coming for millions of years

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It’s a pass/no pass activity class that doesn’t count towards GPA, and apparently examines songs as a narrative arc similar to literature. Seems at least as valuable as, say, golf. :man_shrugging:

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There are universities with Harry Potter classes and Beatles classes and those aren’t pass/fail. There’s literature, anthropology, history, culture/sociology, religious studies, geography…plenty of things to cross list for any pop culture class. It’s almost like there’s value in looking into the effects of major things in modern culture and how they impact how we see the world and how it impacts the rest of us.

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She’s well qualified to talk pop music though

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Why not? This isn’t exactly the same, but when I was in 9th grade (1977) our Social Studies class spent an entire month analyzing and learning the social and political relevance of the song American Pie. It was fascinating and memorable to 14-year-old me.

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It’s almost like you can make lessons interesting and relevant to kids with pop culture and they can learn. Hell, it’s even celebrated sometimes. Crazy stuff. :wink:

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I’m no swiftie but a class on the music of the 60’s would, I think, be totally accepted as a legitimate history class for credit. So I totally don’t see any issue in offering a class like that on Swift’s music

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Taylor Swift is well worth studying. Lana Del Ray too.

I saw a terrifying deconstruct of A&W on YouTube. “ I mean, look at my hair
Look at the length of it and the shape of my body
If I told you that I was raped
Do you really think that anybody would think I didn’t ask for it?”

Terrifying song all round.

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They should really hire Taylor Swift to teach it. Music academies often hire current or ex-rock musicians (or well-known session musicians) to teach classes.

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A&W is the best commercial root beer. Even better if you can drink it at one of its restaurants.

I believe it stands for American Whore

Even American tuition fees couldn’t cover her pay.

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Sounds like a fun extra-curricular class to me, and I don’t even know any Taylor Swift songs.

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I reckon security would be an issue too.

I was also going to mention the Harry Potter courses. I remember those starting when the series was still going… :grandpa: