Swifterature

A Love Story: English Literature and Taylor Swift

Elly McCausland

An exciting literary fusion of fandom and feminism, Swifterature captures the special connection between English literature and the worldwide phenomenon of Taylor Swift.

Swifterature captures a unique fusion of different elements: fandom, feminism, and a defense of both literature and popular culture.

The narrative is split into thirteen chapters that use Swift's lyrics as departure points. The reader experiences the inspiring influence of English literature as Swift’s lens breathes new vitality and urgency into older texts. McCausland also writes about her own experiences as she copes with intense media scrutiny and is forced to defend her academic integrity.

She argues that Swift, through her self-conscious engagement with classic works of literature and her extraordinary popularity, invites us to reflect not only on the culture of our past but also of our present. Swifterature shows how Swift’s place on the world’s stage can teach us about many things, from feminism to politics, nature to childhood. In the process the book makes a compelling case that studying Taylor Swift also turns us into better readers, not only of literature but of ourselves and each other.

Elly McCausland is the award winning author of The Botanical Kitchen (Bloomsbury). She won Online Food Writer of the Year at the Guild of Food Writers Awards. She was also shortlisted for the Fortnum & Mason Food Writing Awards. The Botanical Kitchen won the Jane Grigson Trust award in 2019. During her teaching of her seminar "English Literature, Taylor’s Version," she has also established links with a global network of media contacts and won many influential fans. She is an associate professor of English at Ghent University in Belgium.

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