Heard of Swiftposium? What happens when serious academics discuss all things Taylor Swift (2024)

“Did you know there’s a conference on Taylor Swift?” asked Dr Chiong Yee Keow, a paediatrician and former colleague. We were seated next to each other at an appreciation dinner for the SingHealth Duke-NUS Scientific Congress 2023 in September last year.

We had each done presentations about the work we were doing – mine for YouthConnect, an intervention for mental health practitioners to use with adolescents in the community, hers for the Centre for Holistic Initiatives for Learning and Development (CHILD).

It would seem unlikely that Taylor Swift could somehow enter the conversation during a scientific congress at a table filled with medical doctors, a seasoned nurse, and a clinical psychologist. Cue Taylor Swift song reference: ME! (There will be many more Swift references, so hang in there.)

And yet, that is the power of the American singer-songwriter. Perhaps it didn’t help that at that time, my mobile phone wallpaper was a picture of Swift, and the back of my phone had a sticker with her song lyric on it.

This might have primed the doctors at the table to bring up their children’s experience of trying to get tickets to the Eras Tour (congrats to those who survived “The Great War”).

My first reaction to Yee Keow’s question was “What?” followed by “You’re joking”, then “Are you serious?” ending with “No. Way”.

She turned her phone to me and I was looking at Swift in a sequined top, metallic green and red nails, holding a microphone with the word “Lover” on it. At the top of the poster were the words “Swiftposium 2024: An academic conference on Taylor Swift”. Unbelievable.

Once I got home, I scrolled through the link Yee Keow had sent me. Was there a category I could submit a paper to? And there it was – item six on the list: “When my depression works the graveyard shift”: Mental health discourse and Taylor Swift.

Of course. How could there not be a category on mental health and Taylor Swift? Especially since I have used her lyrics when I supervise students at James Cook University, Singapore (JCU) where I’m a lecturer in Clinical Psychology.

GETTING THE GO-AHEAD FOR SWIFTPOSIUM

I let the weekend pass by before hitting my team group chat with the Swiftposium link, exclaiming – rather overdramatically – that I would be devastated if I did not have something to submit for this conference.

My colleague, Associate Professor Joanna Barlas, replied: “Is it wrong that I burst out laughing at the height of your distress?”

Minutes later, the group realised it was a real conference, and not some scam I got suckered into as a possibly naive Swiftie, and support came pouring in on how I could craft my abstract, with many “Do it!” texts.

The winning moment was when my boss, Professor Nigel Marsh, Director of Professional Programs at JCU, stood at the door of my office the next day and said he had some ideas for my Swiftposium abstract. My eyes lit up at the prospect that this highly respected, well-regarded, somewhat serious and no-nonsense professor of clinical psychology may be a Swiftie.

I have since made him a friendship bracelet with the word “Swiftie” and the song title “Shake It Off”, which he put on (a top 10 professional highlight moment). We had several discussions before finally submitting our abstract in October 2023. Now all we had to do was wait.

“I recall late November, holding my breath….” as my husband (who better to break the news if I did not get in) read out the email from Swiftposium informing me that my abstract had been accepted. I was one of 130 presentations chosen out of over 400 submissions from 78 academic institutions and 60 academic disciplines worldwide. I was ecstatic.

TAYLOR SWIFT’S LYRICS AND YOUR MENTAL HEALTH

Fast forward to Feb 12 and I’m in a building at the University of Melbourne, one of the six universities across Australia and New Zealand responsible for Swiftposium. I’m about to present my paper on the art and science of training mental health practitioners using Taylor Swift’s lyrics.

I talk about how Swift is a singer-songwriter known for creating highly relatable music based on real-life experiences and feelings. I explain how even as she progressed to writing more fictional elements, her lyrics still retain deeply personal perspectives on common themes experienced by many people as they move from youth to adulthood.

I share that her lyrics help the clinical psychology students I supervise to better understand their client’s inner world and learn about process-based therapy in a fun way. Process-based therapy is a new approach to conceptualising psychological problems that takes into account our thoughts, emotions, actions, attention, motivation and sense of self.

Swift’s songs contain many mental health themes, especially in albums like Folklore and Evermore. In This Is Me Trying, she writes: “They told me all of my cages were mental so I got wasted like all my potential”.

This is a powerful line that describes how any of us can get stuck in a cage with our overthinking or negative automatic thoughts, which can prevent us from moving forward with doing what truly matters to us.

Emotions can be hard to grasp, especially if our mental health literacy is poor, but Swift is able to express succinctly the dialectical nature of emotions in her songs. “We’re happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time,” she sings in 22, reinforcing that “It’s miserable and magical”.

We’re allowed to feel multiple emotions that are at odds with each other. In her song The Lakes, she says: “I want auroras and sad prose”, reminding us that life has breathtakingly beautiful moments, as well as “catastrophic blues”.

THE THINGS YOU PICK UP AT A TAYLOR SWIFT CONFERENCE

Swiftposium allowed me to experience how others saw her. There were presentations related to medicine, astronomy, religion, publishing, law and even urban planning.

Additionally, not all the presenters were Swifties. I learned that not all of them listened to her music or knew about the chaos surrounding her personal and professional life. They were at Swiftposium to look more objectively at her effect on the world, whether good or bad.

You could, however, also recognise the Swifties from their clothes and multiple friendship bracelets.

I learned a lot from Swiftposium from the different presentations. In one, I got a crash course on 50 songs I could sing when performing CPR so that I could maintain 100-120 compressions per minute. To name a few: Teardrops On My Guitar, Love Story, Speak Now, 22, Welcome To New York, King Of My Heart, The Man, Mirrorball, Gold Rush and Maroon.

Dr Alethea Rae from Murdoch University in Perth, did a text analysis of all of Taylor Swift’s songs. Did you know that “you” and “I” are the most used words in her songs – 3,371 for you and 3,105 for I? All Too Well has the most unique number of words at 333 and A Perfectly Good Heart has the least, at 68. The Taylor Swift song containing the highest frequency of the word “love” was no surprise – This Love.

There were also presentations that prompted discussions on whether it was Swift’s responsibility to solve or provide solutions to hot topics, from whether she (and other celebrities) should do more to preventing cyberbullying among her fans, to how being a Swiftie was indeed a labour of love.

Dr Georgia Carroll, a self-confessed Swiftie, gave a keynote speech entitled “My pennies made your crown: Taylor Swift as your billionaire best friend”.

I learned that adoration of Swift and her music involved monetary contributions (such as buying multiple records just because they came in different covers), support (such as defending her to others) and actual labour (spending a lot of time making friendship bracelets).

The three-day Swiftposium conference had to end, but Long Live this experience of Wonderland. I’m so thankful to the organisers for being Fearless in creating a canon event.

I’m now so ready for my next Taylor Swift experience – The Eras Tour Singapore.

Dr Natasha Riard is a clinical psychologist. She lectures at James Cook University, Singapore and is the clinic manager at its Psychology Clinic.