What's Deal with Taylor Swift?
Location: Saint Mary's University, SB 255, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:30–3:45 p.m.
Start Date: 1/7/2026
End Date: 4/24/2026
What's Deal with Taylor Swift?
Synopsis
The social, cultural and economic noteworthiness of Taylor Swift is hard to overstate. Her influence and wealth are staggering, her reach, spectacularly global. Her appeal to hundreds of millions of people is mindboggling. This course takes these aspects of Swift’s celebrity status as a starting point and endeavours to interrogate and understand the nature of her appeal, power and influence.Course Overview
The anthropology of the celebrity reminds us that it is a social construct, the product of the public’s interactions with the entertainment industry. Indeed, celebrity figures have been referred to as “America’s royalty.” But even among this noble class, Swift stands out. In this course, we will explore Swift as a global celebrity juggernaut.
Instructor
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Rylan HigginsAssociate Professor and Chairperson • Anthropology Dr. Rylan Higgins is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, where he also previously served as the Chair. His teaching and research focus on sociocultural anthropology, the anthropology of food labour and marginality, social class, gender and consumerism, visual anthropology, engaged and public anthropology, the United States and Vietnam. Dr. Higgins has offered Anthropology courses to the public via the Halifax Central Library, on topics ranging from universal health care to the anthropology of childhood. He continues this tradition in our new Arts For Everyone program at Saint Mary’s, and will be teaching a Winter 2026 course titled “What’s the Deal with Taylor Swift?”. He is also a member of the university’s Board of Governors |