Study Taylor Swift in Upstate NY college’s new power of pop culture class

St. Bonaventure, N.Y. — Karma is a class on Taylor Swift coming straight to a college in Upstate New York.

St. Bonaventure University — a private college just outside of Olean in scenic Western New York — is offering a new course this spring semester on the power of pop culture, the university announced in a news release. Through studying everything from the Taylor Swift effect to the impact of protest music during the Vietnam War era, the class will delve into the influence popular culture has on both the media and public policy.

“The lines between entertainment and politics have always been blurry, but the distinction is even less clear today,” said Richard Lee, the professor behind the course. “The class will help us understand how we arrived at where we are today, as well as where we are headed tomorrow.”

Along with digging into the “phenomenon of Taylor Swift”, the university said the class will examine:

How politicians use appearances on entertainment shows to avoid media scrutiny
The sway celebrities have over public policy
How Volodymyr Zelensky went from portraying the president of Ukraine on a sitcom to serving as the country’s real president

Lee is a professor with St. Bonaventure’s Jandoli School of Communication and executive director of the Jandoli Institute, the college’s public policy center. His courses include “Media and Democracy” and “Campaigns, Candidates and Current Elections”.