UC Berkeley offering new Taylor Swift course on her “enduring value”

UC Berkeley has confirmed that it will be offering a Taylor Swift course next year.

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From 2024, students attending the California college will have the option to enlist in a Taylor Swift-centred course, which explores the business success of the pop star and her ability to create an enterprise out of her music.

Set to be called Artistry and Entrepreneurship: Taylor’s Version, the course will be offered by the Berkeley Haas School of Business, and was developed by an economics graduate named Crystal Haryanto.

It will be available from next Spring and will look at how the singer crafted her music and brand to resonate with listeners. “Swift’s ability to connect with listeners is unparalleled,” reads the syllabus (via The Guardian). “Through lyricism, branding, and craft, we’ll explore how art and authenticity create enduring value and a viable enterprise.”

As well as designing the course, Haryanto will also co-teach alongside a current student. Those who take the course can expect it to expand across 13 weeks and consist of interactive lectures, readings and listening assignments.

“It will be a cross-section of literature, economics, business and sociology and I think that we’re studying her impact as an artist, as a whole,” Haryanto revealed when talking with NBC. “I want to study her literary devices. But also how those literary devices create meaning.”

It comes as little surprise that Taylor Swift will be at the centre of a college course, given the number of accolades that the singer has accumulated this year alone. Just last week, it was reported that the success of her ongoing ‘Eras’ tour – which recently completed its US leg – helped to make Swift a billionaire, and is on course to become the most lucrative tour in music history.

Similarly, with her ongoing stretch of re-released albums under the name ‘Taylor’s Version’, Swift has been dominating the charts and breaking various records on Spotify, including becoming the most-streamed artist in a single day for the streaming platform.

The 33-year-old has also left her mark on cinema over the past couple of months, following the release of her concert film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. Since its global release on October 13, the film was reported as a competitor for Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon at the box office, and within just 10 days took $164.8million (£135.8million).

Back in September, it was also reported that Gannett, the media company behind USA Today and The Tennessean, was looking to hire someone to write exclusively about Swift.

The outlet shared details of its ‘Taylor Swift Reporter’ job on September 12 and, per the post, the firm was looking for “an experienced, video-forward journalist to capture the music and cultural impact” of the singer, with at least five years of experience working in a digital-first newsroom.

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