Stanford University offers entire course on Taylor Swift's song 'All Too Well'

Stanford University, a school with an annual tuition of $56,169, is offering their students a class focused on the Taylor Swift song "All Too Well (Ten Week Version)" in their Winter 2023 quarter.

According to Stanford's website, the class is an "An in depth analysis" of the Swift song and is part of the school's larger Italic 99 coursework, which are "topics taught by alumni of the program and examples of the "hands-on learning and have included topics such as travel sketching, watercolor, music composition, improv acting, animation, and digital art, among many others!"

Rolling Stone reports it is a "50-minute weekly class" although the course website reads "Thursday" in the singular. The class is taught by an undergraduate student, Nona Hungate.

Other classes in the Italic 99 program include Joining Hands: Practice in International Folk Dance and Listening to Music Like Your Life Depended on It.

Last year, Stanford developed the "Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative" which was designed to replace certain words and phrases in the popular vernacular with approved alternatives. The label "American" was a word they suggested needed to be changed and they suggested "US citizen" as a substitute.

"All Too Well (Ten Week Version)" was co-written by Liz Rose and appeared on Swift's 2012 album, Red, her fourth studio release. 

According to Datebook, "Fans and critics believe the song documents the singer's brief relationship with actor Jake Gyllenhaal in 2010 in detailed lyrics that describe a painful breakup."

One of the song's lyrics include, "And maybe we got lost in translation /Maybe I asked for too much/ But maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'til you tore it all up."

Elle compiled a list of all the "slew Hollywood heartthrobs" Swift has dated over the years and noted that the singer often dates them for a few months and then transforms the experiences into "breakup anthems." 

Swift holds an honorary degree from NYU in the fine arts and said in her commencement speech that she was "not the type of doctor you would want around in the case of an emergency unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section."

Courses in Taylor Swift songs have been taught at NYU through its Clive Davis Institute and the University of Texas, Austin.