WYOMISSING, Pa. — Are you ready for it? Penn State Berks will offer a new course titled “Taylor Swift, Gender, and Communication” starting in the fall 2024 semester. 这门课将有100个座位，其中50个预留给伯克商学院的在校生，另外50个预留给即将入学的一年级学生.
交叉列出了传播艺术与科学和妇女研究课程, 它将以独特的方式审视斯威夫特的文化和音乐影响，以及她在媒体上的形象, 而不是专注于斯威夫特的营销策略或她的歌词如何符合文学经典，就像其他大学关于这位歌手的课程一样.
The course was developed and will be taught by Michele Ramsey, 传播艺术与科学以及女性的副教授, gender, and sexuality studies. 拉姆齐的研究兴趣包括媒体中的性别表现, women's rights rhetoric, social movement rhetoric, political rhetoric and advocacy for the humanities.
A course that just ‘hits different’
本课程将从为期三周的音乐对个人身份的影响概述开始, the historical intersections of music and politics, and gendered expectations of female performers. The course will also focus on the career and media treatment of Swift, including subjects such as changes in gendered expectations in shifting from country to pop music; challenges faced by young female musicians as they move from adolescence to adulthood; and the public battles Swift has faced with other celebrities and media representations of those battles that include a tendency to pit successful women against each other.
这个班每周会有一天聚在一起讨论这一周的内容. 拉姆齐还希望利用课堂时间，让学生通过参加鼓励主动学习的活动来建立联系和建立社区. 学生们将分成较小的复习课来讨论本周的阅读材料. At the end of the semester, 拉姆齐和学生们将计划并举办一个社区范围的期末项目，以庆祝斯威夫特和他们从课程中学到的东西.
Ramsey admittedly hasn’t been a longtime “Swiftie.” However, 当她注意到网上对斯威夫特写歌的批评越来越多时，她对斯威夫特产生了兴趣, accusations of her lip synching, 斯威夫特乐队在电影院和她的表演中跳舞——这激发了她创建这门课程的灵感.
“当你在社交媒体上看到音乐会或‘时代之旅’电影放映的帖子时, you see so many important things happening,” Ramsey said. “You see legions of women — grandmothers, moms, young women, teens, tweens, 年轻的女孩和那些不符合我们严格的社会性别和性别认同结构的人——敢于占用空间一起享受他们喜欢的东西.”
'Long story short...'
当被问及她为什么想教这门课时，拉姆齐将原因归结为三个. First, 她希望学生们了解媒体的意识形态力量，它影响着我们对自己是谁以及我们想成为谁的想法. She already does this work in another one of her courses called, “Identity, Citizenship, and the Rhetoric of American Horror Film.”
Secondly, 拉姆齐之所以想教授这门课程，是因为斯威夫特的歌曲中蕴含着强大的信息，而且自从她16岁开始出道以来，这些信息已经发生了很大的变化.
“泰勒·斯威夫特的音乐让人们觉得有能力做自己，这太棒了, to take up space, 不要因为自己的身份而让自己被贬低或嘲笑,” Ramsey said. “但同样重要的是，给学生一个词汇，这样他们就能说出她的音乐所激发的情感和信仰。.”
Finally, 拉姆齐感兴趣的是，如何让斯威夫特的歌曲传达的信息让粉丝们“现在就说话”，并接触到所有年龄段和人口统计数据的粉丝, resonating with Gen Alpha to Baby Boomers.
“Taylor Swift is not only loved by younger generations, and there’s a good reason for that,” Ramsey said. “她通过诚实地谈论自己的生活，在音乐中表现出脆弱，其中许多磨难都与我们对待社会中大多数女性的方式有关. 泰勒的歌曲讲述了几代人的故事，他们的故事并没有成为文明的中心, movies, TV shows or music.”
As Swift is a Wyomissing native, 拉姆齐知道，在斯威夫特的家乡教这门课对学生来说是一次难得的经历. 这门课程鼓励学生进入“Berks时代”，学习自己喜欢的东西的重要性，并在离开时更好地理解我们文化中对女性的期望和压力. 当然，她计划让这段经历让学生们“记忆犹新”.”
For more information about the course, contact Ramsey at EMR10@psu.edu
