Are you “…Ready for it?”
An English course offered on the Tampa campus will concentrate on Taylor Swift for the first time in the fall.
The course, LIT3301: Cultural Studies and Popular Art, has been offered before as an English elective, but can be taken by students of any major.
The class concentrates on a subject within popular culture, including the Harry Potter series or monsters in fiction in the past. It has not focused on musical artists until now.
Jessica Cook, Emily Jones and Michelle Taylor are English professors collaborating to teach three sections of LIT3301 in the fall, all focusing on Swift. They will meet on Tuesday and Thursday from 9:30 to 10:45 a.m.
The course was born out of a conversation between the three over lunch while analyzing the lyrics of “Begin Again” by Swift.
“We realized after we’d been talking for a few minutes, that this is the kind of thing our students do,” Jones said. “We could teach a course on this.”
We keep you informed. Help support us
Classes on Tuesday will be team-taught through broad lectures by Cook, Jones and Taylor in CHE101, an auditorium in the Chemistry building.
Classes on Thursday will meet in smaller classrooms in Cooper Hall. They will be individually taught by each professor through break-out discussions, depending on which section is registered for, according to Jones.
Students can register for any of the three sections – CRN 96126, 96127 and 96128 – but will all have the same class on Tuesdays. On Thursdays, students will meet with the professor they registered for individually for more intimate class discussions on the broader themes of the course.
Since class registration began on March 25, 40 students have signed up for each section of LIT3301, according to Taylor. There are 54 seats remaining as of the time of publication.
The structure of the course has not been finalized yet, according to Jones. The three have all agreed to individually study an album or two and have considered discussing themes across albums, Cook said.
“After [her new album] comes out in [4] days, we might change some of our ideas,” Taylor said. “That might…restructure thinking about each album as its own work of art and how it fits in the album’s interactions with each other.”
Swift’s music will also be compared to literary influences from Shakespeare to Emily Dickinson to Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Byron, according to Cook.
Music videos will be shown and analyzed in class, and Swift’s impact on music and fan culture will be discussed, Taylor said.
Although coursework has not been finalized, traditional and creative assignments such as literary analysis of Swift’s songs and potentially songwriting will be taught, according to Jones.
The course is open to all majors and its only prerequisites are English Composition 1 and 2.
Jones recommends students register as soon as possible due to the course’s anticipated popularity.
“Get your Eras tour tickets early,” Jones said.
The intersection between Fowler Avenue and McKinley Drive was closed due to a death investigation late Tuesday afternoon, according to the Tampa Police Department (TPD). A man shot himself after making a bomb threat in the parking lot of the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), located at 11201 McKinley Drive, according to TPD. Police said […]
The Student Government (SG) Senate approved the 2024-25 Student Activities & Services (A&S) budget for all three campuses this Tuesday, seeing an overall increase in allocated money to student organizations. The vote was 26-0, approving the budget. Related: 2023-24 A&S budget down $5 million from last fiscal year Students pay fees in their tuition – […]
The restrictions on how educators can teach and the lack of pay has deterred education majors, like sophomore Aidan Wright, from wanting to teach in Florida. Wright’s hesitation represents a larger issue facing Florida teachers. This year, the Florida Education Association reported a teacher shortage of over 4,000 educators. This has left “potentially…hundreds of thousands […]
While students made their way into the Marshall Student Center (MSC) over the past year, they might have noticed signs in front of elevators reading they were under repair. One of the most commonly used elevators, behind the information desk at the MSC, was recently completely shut off. The motor on elevator one, on the […]
Florida voters will have the opportunity to decide the future of abortion and marijuana use in the state this November. Six amendments were approved at the beginning of April. These include amendment three, which addresses marijuana use, and amendment four, which addresses abortion. The abortion and marijuana amendments are especially important to college students according […]
Intimate graduations are held at USF for students who wish to cross the graduation stage in a more personal setting alongside their friends and families. This year’s Lavender Ceremony is an opportunity for LGBTQ+ students at USF to participate in a graduation ceremony that celebrates their community. The 2024 USF Lavender Ceremony will be held […]
The Oracle is a student reported, student edited newsroom and needs support from readers like you.
