Don't want to start a new thread for this, but it seems these courses are making the news now:
Rice University offers Taylor Swift course analyzing ‘nationalism,’ ‘whiteness,’ and gender
The private Texas university offers multiple courses examining Taylor Swift's lyrics and cultural influence.
This comes as students are facing an estimated $97,000 yearly cost of attendance.
Firstly, the courses are denoted as:
Quote:Rice will offer “COLL 118 Mastermind: The Taylor Swift Eras” this fall, in which students will analyze Swift’s albums as “primary texts” and examine “how a single artist can shape global culture and shift industry standards.”
“We will decode the history, narrative themes, and lyrical depth of each distinct ‘Era’ to understand how she builds a cohesive universe through her work,” the course description reads.
The class also explores her transition across music genres and her dispute over ownership of her master recordings.
According to the course description, “From the country-pop of her youth to the synth-heavy landscapes of 1989 and the atmospheric indie-folk of folklore, her discography serves as a chronological record of personal and creative growth.”
and
Quote:Rice is also listing a second Swift-focused course in its 2026-27 catalog titled “COLL 167 Miss Americana: The Evolution and Lyrics of Taylor Swift.” This seminar course will focus on Swift’s songwriting alongside discussions about “femininity and gender,” “politics and social impact,” and “American nationalism and whiteness.”
Students in the class will examine all 10 of Swift’s albums and complete written responses, participate in classroom discussions, and write a final essay analyzing one of her songs.
The university previously offered the same course in fall 2023.
So, as I recall, the individual Residential Colleges on campus are allowed to construct and offer their own custom courses for, if memory serves, one college credit each. Since these offerings were not (back in the day, anyway) official department courses, there was some latitude in what they covered and how they were taught.
I am not sure whether those same parameters apply to these type of courses today, but I will say that so far the stories I have read about it do not seem to mention that these are what I would call "custom courses, offered outside the normal departmental curriculum, created by, requested by, and/or curated by mostly students of the Residential Colleges on campus, although some might be taught by low-level faculty, and offered only for minimal or zero credit hours." Now, that's how I remember these type of courses designated
COLL, for Residential College created course.
Again, that was a while ago, so rules and parameters about these courses may have changed since the old days. For the record, the only such course I remember and took that was offered was one called something like "COLL101, Banking, the Money Supply and the basics of how our Financial System Works" offered for either one or zero credit hours (I can't recall). Certainly, nothing approaching a Taylor Swift course was being offered even by the colleges back in the day, although I do remember it was fun at the dinner table batting around funny ideas about what possible College Residential Course offerings one might have proffered for the future. KTRU certainly provided a lot of fodder for those brainstorming sessions as I recall.
So, overall, not a good look for the South Main U, but with proper explanation (and updating for the actual rules of today on how these kids of courses are handled by the Admin and the actual amount of credit) I think these kind of semi-tongue-in-cheek low-level, low or no credit offerings are less harmful that many ACTUAL idiotic offerings at other schools through entire Departments on those campuses that are, well, worthless would be too kind. 'Gender Studies', 'Social Justice' and the like come to mind...but anyhoo, hope there's none of that actual stupidity from an actual Rice Department being taught at South Main in anything but a "this is a fun joke of a Residential College course taught for laughs and giggles only, do not take it seriously." Now, about that M1 Money Supply and the stupidity of inflating it to the detriment of the legal Citizenry by providing Hundreds of Billions of handouts to non-citizen Learing Centers, tens of thousands Hospice and Elder Care places all located in the same P.O. Box with little to no verifiable records of where the taxpayer money is going to or what it was actually spent on and by who (luxury cars and jewelry for starters) often by non-citizens who just fill out forms and receive their millions with almost zero background checking or oversight....
...and FTR, I find Taylor Swift to be a terrible songwriter, average singer at best, with her space-alien eyes way too far apart on her oddly shaped head to match her pasty, cellulite tipping point skin covered with tights to hide what Lindsey Lohan must think makes hers actually look decent; ick....proves the machine can market almost anything to suckers, hence HeilPlatner, TexasTallywackero, and Basshat/Newscam still have 'careers'...Tay-tay fits the same empty mold...
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A Moral Rot at Rice University
