Another university has launched a Taylor Swift course
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Your support makes all the difference.A University has introduced a course on Taylor Swift.
The Swift craze has arrived in classrooms in the Philippine capital, with a premier university rolling out a celebrity studies course examining the singer and her impact on global pop culture.
As the performer visits Asia this week, more than 300 students signed up for the elective course at the University of the Philippines, filling limited slots within minutes and prompting the administration to launch an extra class.
“We’re going to treat Taylor Swift as a celebrity, which means we’re going to look at her from the lens of various ways of thinking such as the intersection of sex, gender, and class,” Cherish Brillon, a professor in the broadcast communications department, said after her first lecture.
Herself a “Swiftie”, as fans of the singer are popularly known, Brillon said the course would also study media portrayals of Swift, and how she is viewed in Philippines as a “transnational” figure.
Some of the two dozen students wore Swift merchandise and adorned their notebooks and laptops with stickers featuring the 14-time Grammy Award winner.
“I would love to delve deeper into the societal issues that we face in connection to Taylor Swift,” said student Shyne, a “Swiftie” since grade school.
US universities such as Harvard, Stanford, and Berklee College of Music have offered courses on Swift, tackling her song-writing and literary takes on her discography, among other topics.
Swift is set to perform six sold-out “Eras Tour” shows in Singapore - her only stop in Southeast Asia - on March 2 to 9. More than 300,000 tickets were sold to fans who queued overnight in the blistering tropical heat.
On Tuesday an Australian photographer said he was punched by Taylor Swift‘s father on a wharf on Sydney Harbour after her final Sydney concert, prompting a police investigation.
Police said they were investigating an alleged assault involving a 71-year-old man and another man on Neutral Bay wharf about 2.30am on Tuesday. Police did not name Swift‘s father, Scott, who is 71 years of age.
Local media reported the complainant was an Australian photographer who was waiting for Taylor Swift and her father as they arrived at the Neutral Bay wharf following a late-night cruise on Sydney Harbour.
Taylor Swift was with her father at the time, but had entered a car when the alleged assault occurred, according to state broadcaster ABC.
A spokesperson for Taylor Swift told Rolling Stone two people were acting “aggressively” towards Swift and her entourage when the incident occurred.
“Two individuals were aggressively pushing their way towards Taylor, grabbing at her security personnel, and threatening to throw a female staff member into the water,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
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