MANILA -- The University of the Philippines (UP) is set to offer a course centered around American pop icon Taylor Swift, making waves among students and fans alike.

Cherish Aileen Brillon, a faculty member at the UP College of Mass Communication, revealed that the elective course will be offered under the BA Broadcast Media Arts and Studies program during the second semester of the academic year 2023-2024.

According to Brillon, the course will delve into the conception, construction, and performance of Swift as a celebrity. It aims to explore how Swift's public persona can be used to examine various aspects of society, including class, politics, gender, race, and the pursuit of success and mobility as portrayed by the media.

“Because our discipline is media studies, we opted to look at her from what we call the lens of celebrity studies. The intention of the course is to use Taylor Swift as an example para ma-explain 'yung relation natin ng public hindi lang ng fans, the way that the public looks at her pati 'yung media, the way that we look at issue on gender, class, fantasy of success and mobility,” she explained.

Brillon expressed excitement about the course, acknowledging Swift's role in contemporary pop culture.

She said students will explore the ways in which media representations contribute to the construction of identities, the reinforcement of stereotypes, and the exploration of personal and collective fantasies.

“I think very important for me in the last elections, I was very much involved in the local campaign, and one of the things that I noticed that the election was really a fandom-driven campaign. So there were really fans or fandom, who really campaign for a certain politician and one of the fandoms is Taylor Swift’s,” she said.

According to Professor Alwin Aguirre, chair of UP Department of Broadcast Communication, the department plans to offer other celebrity-centric courses.

“For this semester, we are trying to introduce a series of courses that focus on celebrity studies but as experienced and defined in the Philippines. So the first one of those would be focus on Taylor Swift because we recognize the importance of the activities of the fandom of Taylor Swift in the Philippines and globally,“ he said.

Also part of the series will be a study on the Pinoy pop group SB19.

The announcement of this unique course has generated significant interest among UP students and enthusiasts of popular culture. Many eagerly anticipate the opportunity to delve into the intricacies of Swift's fame and the broader implications it has on contemporary society.