Start Date
6 May, 2025
There will be 8 weekly meetings on Tuesday 6 - 8pm, starting from 6 May.
Overview
Join our expert, Naomi Adam, for a deep-dive into the lyrics of Taylor Swift’s eleven studio albums! This course uses the ever-popular Taylor Swift as a case study in understanding contemporary popular music. Through tutor-led and interactive sessions, participants will learn to use a variety of literary and linguistic frameworks and will ultimately leave the course well-equipped to comment with authority on popular music. No prior experience is required, and neither is a love of Taylor Swift’s music (although ‘Swifties’ are more than welcome!).
Syllabus
Week 1 – Introduction (... Ready for It?)
- An overview of the course content, with a special focus on establishing Swift’s lyrics as worthy of sustained study
Week 2 – Stories (Love Story)
- Hero, helper, donor, princess: using Formalism to explore Swift’s storytelling
Week 3 – Intertextuality (Dear Reader)
- Exploring the literary connections across Swift’s discography
Week 4 – Disnarration (Should’ve Said No)
- Focusing on the shadow side of Swift’s storytelling: the counterfactual events that do not happen, but are sung about anyway
Week 5 – Perspectives (I Look in People’s Windows)
- Swift’s stylistic approaches to presenting songs from different perspectives
Week 6 – Metaphor and Malaphor (Castles Crumbling)
- The non-literal language that works in Swift’s lyrics... and the language that doesn’t!
Week 7 – Colour (Gold Rush)
- Analysing colour symbolism in Swift’s work using a specially curated corpus of her singles
Week 8 – Swearing (Vigilante Shit)
- The evolution of Swift’s use of expletives
Please note that the ‘last date available to book’ date is only a guide. We reserve the right to close bookings earlier if courses are over- or under-subscribed. In order to avoid disappointment, please be sure enrol as soon as possible. Registrations will not be processed until the following day if received after 3pm.
Course Lecturer: Dr Naomi Adam
Dr Naomi Adam is a researcher in Literary Linguistics, and has taught at the Universities of Liverpool and Nottingham. Her research interests span award-winning, contemporary and global literature, cognitive poetics, and fictolinguistics. She has had articles published in Babel: The Language Magazine, English Text Construction and Language and Literature, among other outlets, and is currently working on a monograph titled Metaperspectives in Contemporary Literary Fiction, to be published by Bloomsbury in 2025. Naomi also acts as production manager of the Journal of Languages, Texts, and Society and editor of Parlance, the newsletter of the Poetics and Linguistics Association. She is unwilling to limit herself to a single favourite era, with Red, reputation and evermore as her top three.
Courses fees: Full fee £125/Concession £65.
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