While it’s no secret Taylor Swift has captured hearts across the globe with her musical mastery, Elizabeth Vlossak is shining a spotlight on another area of the celebrated musician’s expertise.

Through a new course this spring, the Associate Professor of History is exploring Swift not only as a pop culture phenomenon, but also as something else entirely: a historian.

Vlossak — a self-proclaimed “Swiftie” — is bringing her unique take to Brock students through “A Swift History,” which will introduce history and historical methods through Swift’s music, career and fandom.

While most Swift-related education courses in Canada generally focus on music and business, Vlossak’s course will take the road less travelled — into the past.

“Historical research involves asking questions, like why and how an event took place, and then finding and interpreting evidence to piece the story together to answer those questions, including why it matters,” Vlossak says. “Swift engages with the past like a historian.”

Vlossak has long been interested in how Swift evokes the past through her music, and has written about the historical figures and events Swift has woven into her lyrics.

With her eighth studio album folkore (2020), Swift ventured beyond telling the stories of her own history and began detailing the lives of people of the past and connected historical events.

Among the many examples Vlossak cites is “The Last Great American Dynasty,” which tells the story of Rebekah Harkness (1915-1982), an American philanthropist and composer known for her “scandalous” behaviour at her home in Rhode Island — a house that Swift now owns.

Swift’s engagement with the past through her songwriting goes beyond simply telling a story; Vlossak argues that she also “thinks historically.”

“Swift is fascinated by time and meticulously records dates; she reflects on causes and consequences; she considers different perspectives and competing interpretations; and she references primary sources like photographs, letters, diaries and material culture — the building blocks of historical research,” Vlossak says.

Swift’s interest in primary sources can be found in the song “Marjorie” in which Swift sings about the artifacts of her grandmother’s life.

“Swift asks poignantly what happens when all the ‘artifacts’ of a person’s life, from their clothes, to letters, to grocery lists disappear after they die. How do we tell their stories? These are questions that historians ask: what can we learn about the past through these sources, and how do we study people who have left few or no records behind,” Vlossak says.

In addition to studying what history is and related research methodologies, students in Vlossak’s course will learn more about some of the historical events and figures that Swift has referenced in her songwriting, including the “witch craze” of the 16th century, the First World War and 1920s silent film star Clara Bow.

Swift herself will also be the subject of historical inquiry as students explore the history of fandom and women in the arts and popular culture.

“As a cultural phenomenon who has changed the face of pop music and challenged the music industry (for example, by reclaiming her master recordings), Taylor Swift is already considered a historical figure,” Vlossak says. “But how will historians write about Taylor Swift and interpret her life and legacy in 20 or even 100 years?”

Vlossak says studying Swift through a historical lens can help students understand historiography — the history of historical writing, or the “history of history.”

“What is the purpose of history? Whose history do we write and how does this affect the stories that are told or not told? Just like Taylor Swift as she moves from one era to the next, history is not static,” she says. “Our understanding of the past is constantly evolving.”

More information about Brock’s spring/summer course offerings, including “A Swift History,” is available online.

Photo credit: Paolo V, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.