Did You Know? The University of the Philippines Offers a Course on Taylor Swift

Celebrity Studies: Taylor Swift in Focus is the course taught by Professor Cherish Brillon at UP Diliman’s College of Mass Communication. Through her essay published on the university’s website, she explained that she “initially gravitated towards ‘serious’ and ‘socially relevant’ topics like technology and the Filipino diaspora” when she was a graduate student, “but while those are very, very important, they could not connect to who I was as a person.”

Establishing the elective on the 14-time Grammy award winner embodies how the Filipino academe could potentially evolve, wherein students have the opportunity to learn about something that resonates with them, and that carries a larger implication outside of them at the same time.

Taylor, alone, generates various reactions, opinions, and comments as “a polarizing figure in the global entertainment industry.” With this, Prof. Cherish has been asked countless times why the pop star is worth devoting time and resources to, as compared to local celebrities. She explained that her academic interests focus on political economy—from gender and postcolonial theories, to the transnational nature of cultural products and popular culture—all of which are embodied by Taylor.

Still, this does not diminish the contributions of local celebrities. In fact, she enumerated some of the many academic works that have been written about them. Media studies simply involve broader fields that generate varying levels of conversation.

“It is also interesting to note that the Philippines is always in the top ten countries that are the biggest streamers of Swift’s music,” she added. Beyond this and despite being a listener herself, the course does not turn a blind eye on the musician’s “less-than-ideal stances on other issues” when it comes to politics, as these are also tackled in class.

As Prof. Cherish explained it, popular culture is worth looking at with a serious perspective, too, and it can teach so much about a country. “So, to the question of ‘Why Taylor?’ I always answer, why not?” She added, “A lot of foreign scholars study us, our cultural products, and our discourses, so why can’t we study theirs and put forth knowledge claims and pathways that come from us being Filipinos existing and participating in a global stage?”