Taylor Swift Culture, Capital, and Critique

Introduction: Why Taylor? On Taylor Swift as the Anti-Hero, We Need – Hannah McCann, Eloise Faichney, Rebecca Trelease, and Emma Whatman 1. Swifties: The Politics and Productivity of Fandom 1: Taylor-Made Learning: Fan Labour, Skill Development and Celebrity Interaction in the Taylor Swift Affinity Space – Kate Pattison  2: Building Less Toxic Fandoms: Lessons from Online Community Architecture and Management – Jennifer Beckett 3: “Taylor Was Here”: Swifties in Sports Fandom and Diverse Fans Reclaiming Space in the Stands – Kasey Symons  4: Filipino Swifties and Pop Culture Activism in the New Marcos Era – Joy Sales 2. Reading Swift: Gender, Femininity, Feminism 5: The Power of the Intimate: Autoethnographic Reflections on Intimate Connections with Taylor Swift – Samantha Owen, Madeleine Dobson, Elizabeth Baca, Lilly Heseltine, and Alys Owen 6: “Miss Americana” and South Korea’s “Little Sister”: The Gendered Familial/National Celebrities of Taylor Swift and IU – Jiyoung Lee 7: Taylor Swift’s Tortured (Internet) Poetry: Millennial Life Writing, Internet Culture, and Feminist Autotheory – Eloise Faichney 8: Snakes and Stones Can Break Bones: Taylor Swift, Online Violence and the Law – Cassandra Mudgway 9: Taylor Swift and the Limits of Neoliberal Postfeminist Friendship – Emma Whatman 3. Swift Dispossession: Questions of Whiteness and Colonialism 10: Taylor Swift’s Influence on Southeast Asian Swifties’ Socio-Political Activism – Aimee-Sophia Lim 11: Cultural (Re)Colonisation in Asia Through the Lens of Taylor Swift – Huynh Tan Gia Bao and Stephanie Bucci  12: Taylor Swift, White Possession, and Colonial Discourse in Popular Music – Holly Randell-Moon 4. Queering Swift: Queer Readings vs Lavender Capitalism  13: Monsters and Mad Women: A Queer Gothic Reading of Taylor Swift – Duc Dau and Hannah McCann 14: Absent Analysis, Heteronormative Biopolitics, and “Lavender (Haze) Capitalism” in Swiftian Lore – Leah Madelaine Schmidt, Natalie Abbott, Laura Carman McClintock, and Lauren Modra 15: Taylor (Sheesh)’s Version: Recreating and Co-Creating Taylor Swift Through Filipino Drag and Fandom Participation – Allison Anne G. Atis, Noel Sajid Murad, Christine Anne R. Cox, and Serena M. Vaswani 5. Swift as “Event”: Music, Cities, Communities  16: She Had This Big, Wide City All to Herself: Taylor Swift and Non-Economic Legacies in a Time of Music Sector Crisis in Melbourne – Olivia Hally, Anna Kosovac, and Philippa Chandler  17: What Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Can Teach Us About Cyber Attacks? – Andrew Reeves, Nadia Scott, Agata McCormac, and Debi Ashenden 18: Is Taylor Swift a NUMTOT?: Lyrical Representations of Public Transport and the Car – Harrison Croft 19: The Taylor Swift Paradox: A New Form of Blockbuster Artist Redefining the Indie – Miriam Boulos and Alexandre Perrin

Biography

Hannah McCann is a senior lecturer in Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Hannah’s academic work sits within the field of Critical Femininity Studies, with research on topics including queer femininities, beauty culture, and queer fandom. She is the author of Queering Femininity: Sexuality, Feminism and the Politics of Presentation (Routledge) and co-author of Queer Theory Now: From Foundations to Futures (available via Bloomsbury).

Eloise Faichney is a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Eloise’s research interrogates historical, digital, and popular culture life narratives; creative writing across digital platforms; and critical digital pedagogies. She is currently working on a novel about the volatile friendship of 20th-century authors, Naomi Mitchison and Doris Lessing.

Rebecca Trelease is a senior lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT), New Zealand. Her research examines the reality television genre through the lens of taste and class. Rebecca is the 2024 designer of the Taylor Swift: Communications Professional accredited course at AUT.

Emma Whatman is an early career researcher, lecturer, and writer from Melbourne, Australia. Emma’s research explores contemporary feminism, young people’s media cultures, and sex education. She works as a research fellow and sessional lecturer at Deakin University and the University of Melbourne.