Taylor Swift goes to law school (sort of)

It’s Taylor Swift’s world and we’re all just living in it. The pop star is seemingly everywhere these days: on the stage, on the big screen, on your TV (at her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s football games), on the radio…and now, she’s even making her way into law school. 

University of South Dakota law professor (and self-proclaimed Swiftie) Sean Kammer is offering a class all about the singer-songwriter called The Taylor Swift Effect. Yes, seriously.

“I understand this sounds ridiculous, at least at first glance,” Kammer admitted to Reuters. “But it’s not.”

Kammer was inspired to develop the writing-intensive class after attending The Eras Tour in Minneapolis over the summer. The class will look at Swift’s interactions with the law, analyzing copyright law in regards to her rerecording six albums, and will also compare how individual experiences and beliefs can shape how a person interprets the law to how people interpret Tay Tay’s song lyrics. 

The law professor told Reuters that he plans to choose certain songs to examine the interpretation of lyrics and legal texts, as well as the pros and cons of approaches like originalism, evolutionism and textualism.

“If we have students who are passionate about Taylor Swift—and we do—I thought that could be a useful lens to get them excited about certain topics they might not normally be interested in,” Kammer said. The Taylor Swift Effect will be available to second- and third-year law students during spring semester. It’s the first law school class dedicated to the music icon. 

Boston University professor Jessica Silbey, who co-authored a textbook on pop culture and the law, told Reuters that she’s found students are more inclined to be engaged in studies when the subject is something like sports, new technology or celebrities.

Though this will be the first Swift-focused law class, Reuters pointed out other colleges have offered courses about the superstar. The University of California at Berkeley recently announced a business course based on her entrepreneurship, and Stanford, New York University and the University of Texas have offered classes revolving around Swift in the past.

Collegiate is not the only level of education using Swift to help teach students. A third grade teacher recently went viral on Instagram after sharing a Swift-inspired song she and her students sing during math class. She changed the lyrics of the Lover track “Cruel Summer” to help kiddos learn how to count by eights, and it’s pretty brilliant.