Academia for most brings up images of serious old men with dusty wizard features but in February 2024, Melbourne University is hosting a three day conference about the pop-culture phenomenon that is Taylor Swift, puncturing that musty stereotype.
Senior lecturer in cultural studies Hannah McCann is one of the organisers of the Swiftposium, who first tweeted the idea and was blown away by the interest. It's now ballooned from a local conference into a global call-out.
Coinciding with her Eras tour landing in Australia, the Swiftposium shows that Taylor Swift's popularity as a topic of study is only growing. Four researchers share what studying the queen of pop is like.
Has Taylor Swift been overlooked by academia?
Despite being in the public eye for the past 17 years, Taylor Swift has only just started to get academic attention — but Dr McCann believes the Swiftposium will help rectify this.
"I think Taylor largely being overlooked academically until now is due to a perfect storm of factors: The fact that she's a pop star, which is considered low culture; and that she's an icon of femininity and anything associated with femininity is taken less seriously."
It's this notion of femininity being undervalued that fuels Dr McCann's interest in Taylor Swift, and has dominated the majority of her study.
"In my work I look at cultural sites/identities associated with femininity — such as hair and beauty salon, fangirls, queer femmes, and more. Essentially my work is about taking seriously that which is usually associated with the 'unserious' and 'frivolous'."
This relates not only to how Taylor Swift is perceived, but notably by how her fan base — a large and somewhat militant group who are mostly young women — are treated.
"My work on fangirls has specifically involved looking at the queer lens that some fans bring to their idols – whether their idols are out as queer or not. This is what I will be bringing to my co-authored paper for the Swiftposium: A queer reading of Taylor Swift's oeuvre."
Eloise Faichney is the chair of the Swiftposium's steering and executive committees, and is excited about the scholarly conversations to be had about Taylor Swift at the Swiftposium.
"Studying a figure like Taylor Swift, who is the number one streamed artist in Australia and counts 53 per cent of Americans as self-identified fans, doesn't seem strange to us, but I can see how it might seem a little surprising from the public's perspective," Dr Faichney admits.
"Taylor Swift is often credited with having an 'outsized influence'. It means that her impact is literally larger than life … There are through-lines from Taylor's songwriting work to the fields of philosophy, literature, poetry, and music studies. Her concert tours raise issues of public planning, sustainability, and economic effects."
What is it like to study Taylor Swift?
Georgia Carroll is the keynote speaker of the Swiftposium, and one of the only academics in the world purely focused on researching Taylor Swift.
Dr Carroll's pathway to Taylor Swift academia started when she undertook an undergraduate course at Sydney University called "Celebrity Society" (which sadly no longer exists).
"It was the first moment I went 'wait! I could actually do something with this', and I went from there, to Honours, to a PhD. I chose to study Taylor because one of my key research interests is fan-celebrity interaction, and I've always been fascinated with the way she hand-picks fans to meet, and how that intersects with visible forms of consumption."
Dr Carroll hopes that the success of the Swiftposium will help normalise the studying of pop culture in Australian academia.
"When my thesis title was read out at my graduation recently, the entire hall laughed, which I did find funny, but also, you wouldn't dream of laughing at a title related to any other kind of research.
"As much as I joke about having a PhD in Taylor Swift, you don't get a PhD without conducting deep, legitimate academic research."
PhD candidate Kate Pattison, who describes herself as a long-time Swiftie, believes that much of her life has been defined by being a fan — so subsequently she was excited to go back to university research fandom.
"Swifties are one of the case studies for my PhD research, along with fans of Harry Styles, Delta Goodrem and BTS. Essentially I'm looking at how participation in pop music fandoms can be beneficial in other areas of life, such as the workplace."
Like most PhD candidates, Ms Pattison works several jobs along with her studies.
"Overall, it's been so rewarding to do what I love for a living. Every so often I'll come across people who question the value of this sort of research, as there's still work to be done to shift the perceptions of fans and pop music, but the real highlight has been connecting with a broader community of like-minded people."
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