2026-08-25
1 小时 21 分钟Welcome to the LSE events podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Get ready to hear from some of the most influential international figures in the social sciences.
LSE events are taking a break over the summer, so we've dug into our archives
of more than 7,000 lectures to bring you some of our favourites, including this one.
Good evening, everyone.
Thanks very much for coming.
I'm Professor Jonathan Birch, and it's a pleasure to welcome you to this event,
this Philosophy Live event on Taylor Swift and philosophy.
Taylor Swift is big business.
Mayors of cities all around the world long for the measurable economic boost that her presence
in their town for a single day will bring.
And it's fair to say that university administrators are starting to see things in the same way.
There are Taylor Swift themed courses at over 15 universities around the world,
including Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley.
I think it's easy to be sceptical about this emerging field of Taylor Swift studies.
It's easy to think maybe this is a case of...
Going too far in the direction of giving students what they want.
I think it's possible to think maybe this is a case of the boundaries between fandom and scholarship becoming
a little bit blurred in relation to an artist who's known for extracting incredibly extreme feats of devotion from fans.
But that's where I think the new book, Taylor Swift and Philosophy, makes a real contribution.