Harvard Memorial Church To Host “Reading Taylor Swift As A Sacred Text” Event

Authored by Jennifer Kabbany via The College Fix,

A Harvard Memorial Church student program is slated to host a “Reading Taylor Swift as a Sacred Text” tonight.

The Tuesday evening event is organized by the Memorial Church Student Program Coordinator & Multifaith Engagement fellow.

“What can reading the texts that matter to us as sacred tell us about ourselves and our lives? Discover a new way to engage with the Taylor Swift canon that honors the important emotional and spiritual role her work plays in many peoples’ lives. Bring your favorite Taylor Swift song and we’ll bring the sacred reading practices,” the event description states.

The RSVP page also states the gathering is “open to people from all religious, ethical, and spiritual backgrounds.”

“We will be using Lectio Divina, an ancient Christian monastic reading practice, but the insights you gain from this practice will not necessarily be connected to the Christian tradition or ‘religious’ in nature. Students are invited and encouraged to bring insights and wisdom from their own lives, traditions, and backgrounds.”

Harvard is no stranger to Swift adoration.

It offered a class dedicated to the pop star last spring.

That class even hosted an all-nighter to review the release of her new album “The Tortured Poets Department.”

As The College Fix previously reported, the University of Florida’s Honors Program offered a course on Swift last semester.

As it relates to the intersection between Swift and religion, The Fix reported in July about a class at Duke University that involved Swift and the occult:

At Duke University, a first-year writing course called “Radical Magic,” will analyze why magic and the supernatural “have been coded as feminine, irrational, and sinister.” Students also will discuss why people accuse Taylor Swift of witchcraft.

Course instructor Cheryl Spinner told The Fix via email [at the time] her class will look at footage of Swift’s Eras Tour and “use gender and feminist studies to parse out what’s really going on with these accusations.”

Spinner said she had productive discussions in previous classes about the pop star, including the lyrics from one of her songs: “I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street,” which Swift sings on a moving stage that appears to make her float.

The class also will examine the literacy quality of tarot cards, spells, and incantations. Their final project will be to create a grimoire, or spellbook that records “magical insights and oral traditions that might otherwise be forgotten,” according to Spinner.

An entire academic conference has also been dedicated to Swift in the past, zeroing in on topics such as gender, capitalism and feminism.