WYOMISSING, Pa. — How do you translate what you learned in a semester-long course to a community celebration for an audience ranging in age from kindergarteners to senior citizens? That was the challenge to Penn State Berks students in the “Taylor Swift, Gender and Communication” course, and they rose to the occasion. The community event included poster presentations on the messages behind the singer-songwriter’s eras, as well as friendship bracelet-making, Swift’s famous Chai cookies, and, of course, a concert of Taylor Swift’s greatest hits.

Approximately 200 community members visited Penn State Berks campus on Saturday, Nov. 2, for the free community event, which was months in the making. And while it’s been a long time since Wyomissing-native Taylor Swift performed in her hometown, the attendees felt the excitement and energy of a Taylor Swift concert with a performance by the Stephanie Grace Band, covering Swift’s greatest hits.

Senior Madeline Marous, a student in the course, opened for the band with two covers of Swift’s songs and a few of her own original tunes. She stated in an interview, “Taylor Swift has inspired me a lot, so it was just kind of a full-circle moment,” stated Marous, who performs under the stage name “Call Me Annie.”

“Over last summer when there was the Eras Tour, and the whole Barbie movement, women are taking up more space, their voices are being heard,” added Marous.

While there was music and bracelet-making, the main goal of the event — from an academic standpoint — was for students to translate what they have learned in the course to an audience with a wide age range. They accomplished this by creating poster presentations, guiding audience members through each era and album of Swift’s musical career.

“It was actually pretty difficult,” stated Michele Ramsey, who developed and taught the course. “They really had to think a lot about how to say what they wanted to say about gender as it relates to the album they were assigned in a way that both adults and 5-year-olds would understand.”

Ramsey, associate professor of communication arts and sciences and of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Penn State Berks, explained that the idea to develop the course was sparked when she noticed a discrepancy in the way women who admire Swift are treated online.

“Men go to football stadiums all the time, they cheer, they scream, wear jerseys with other peoples’ last names on them, paint their faces, chest bump, and nobody says anything about that,” Ramsey said. “Then these young girls get engaged with this wonderful human — all positivity, all love — dance around, dress up in their favorite eras or songs for themselves, and people made fun of them and called them ‘cult members.’ I was like, OK, there’s a real gendered element here.”

Ramsey also stated that the Taylor Swift phenomenon and the lessons it offers also provide insight on topics like entrepreneurship, how influencers gain popularity, how the media pits successful women against each other, and the differences in the ways we and the press talk about successful women versus how successful men are talked about.

More importantly, Ramsey said the transformation of Swift and other female artists into global icons marks the first time in history that women’s stories have become central to pop culture.

The college plans to offer the course again in the fall semester of 2025.