Karma

• It’s 2024 and he was born in 1564, and she’s only 34.
• Sliding her into the classroom would be yet another example of a dumbed-down curriculum.
• Well, the dates might be, but not the assumptions – about Shakespeare, about English, about teaching, and about Swift.
• In Sweet Nothing, on the Midnights album, she sings:
  On the way home
  I wrote a poem
  You say “What a mind”
  This happens all the time.
• Read more:
  How did Taylor Swift get so popular?

An ally of literature

• Regardless of what The Tortured Poets Department ends up being about, Swift is already a firm ally of literature and reading.
• It’s that the discipline of English literature is flexible, capacious and open-minded.
• A class on reading Swift’s work as literature is just another English class, because every English class requires grappling with the idea of reading anything as literature.
• A class on reading Swift’s work as literature is just another English class, because every English class requires grappling with the idea of reading anything as literature.
• I will be teaching Midnights and Shakespeare’s Sonnets together in a literature unit at the University of Sydney this semester.

Teaching Midnights and Shakespeare’s Sonnets

• I also teach three modern artworks that shed contemporary light on the sonnets.
• Bervin prints a selection of the sonnets, one per page, in grey text.
• In each of these grey sonnets, some of Shakespeare’s words and phrases are printed in black and thus stand out boldly.
• Unlike Bervin’s and Kennard’s collections, in which individual pieces relate to specific sonnets, there is no explicit adaptation.

Deep connection

• The fun challenge of writing a pop song is squeezing those evocative details into the catchiest melody you can possibly think of.
• I thrive on the challenge of sprinkling personal mementos and shreds of reality into a genre of music that is universally known for being, well, universal.
• Her point is that the pop songs that “cut through the most are actually the most detailed” in their snippets of reality and biography.
• She says “people are reaching out for connection and comfort” and “music lovers want some biographical glimpse into the world of our narrator, a hole in the emotional walls people put up around themselves to survive”.
• Swift claims that Midnights lets listeners in through her protective walls to enable deep connection:
  I really don’t think I’ve delved this far into my insecurities in this detail before.

• This connects very well with the agenda of Midnights.
• Swift’s songs and Shakespeare’s Sonnets are meditations on deeply personal aspects of their narrators’ experiences.
• Swift’s persona is that of a self-reflective singer, just as Shakespeare’s is that of a self-reflective sonneteer.

Close reading

Shakespeare’s sonnets are rewarding texts for close reading because of their poetic intricacy. Students can look at end rhymes and internal rhymes, the way the argument progresses through quatrains, the positioning of the “turn”, which is often in line 9 or 13, and the way the final couplet wraps things up (or doesn’t).

• Karma and Mastermind are simpler, yet contain plenty of metaphoric language to be unpacked for meaning and aesthetic effectiveness.
• Such unexpected pairings are valuable because they require close attention and careful articulation of what is similar and what is not.
• How about High Infidelity and Sonnet 138 (where love and self-deception coexist), considered in terms of truth in relationships?
• There is nothing to lose and plenty to gain in teaching Swift’s Midnights and Shakespeare’s Sonnets together.

Liam E Semler receives research funding from the Better Strangers project which is a collaborative education research project between the University of Sydney and Barker College. Better Strangers hosts the Shakespeare Reloaded website (https://shakespearereloaded.edu.au/) and explores innovative approaches to teaching and learning Shakespeare.

• In the past four months, all or parts of Gaza’s 12 universities have been bombed and mostly destroyed.
• The Palestinian Ministry of Education has reported the deaths of over 4,327 students, 231 teachers and 94 professors.
• Israel has a long record of targeted attacks on Palestinian institutions that produce knowledge and culture.

What is scholasticide?

• Scholasticide describes the systemic destruction of Palestinian education within the context of Israel’s decades-long settler colonization and occupation of Palestine.
• Scholasticide includes killing, causing bodily or mental harm, incarcerating, or systematically harassing educators, students and administrators.
• It can also include using universities or schools as a military base (as was done with Al-Israa University).

The International Court of Justice

• During the recent genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa argued that Palestinian academics were being intentionally assassinated.
• Legal representative for South Africa, Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, told the court:
  “Almost 90,000 Palestinian university students cannot attend university in Gaza.
• Over 60 per cent of schools, almost all universities and countless bookshops and libraries have been damaged and destroyed.

Attempting to eliminate Palestinian futures

• It’s part of a colonial continuum of attacking and destroying a people’s educational life, knowledge systems and plundering material culture and cultural heritage.
• Thousands of Palestinian books, manuscripts, libraries, archives, photographs, cultural artifacts and cultural property were looted, destroyed or damaged by Zionist militias.
• In 1948, Palestinian schools were destroyed or damaged or later appropriated for use by the new Israeli state.

Resistance: Palestinian history and culture

• Despite the ongoing attempts to erase Palestinian history, culture and memory, Palestinians have found ways to resist their erasure.
• It helped to create infrastructures for the survival, mobilization and development of the Palestinian people and their national movement.
• Palestinian education and culture form the backbone of the right to self-determination.
• This is why Israel frequently targets Palestinian education and culture.

• Cultural heritage has been annihilated, damaged or plundered in this war.
• During the bombing of Al-Israa University in January, Israel also targeted the National Museum.
• Licensed by the Ministry of Antiquities, the museum housed over 3,000 rare artifacts, which were looted.

Chandni Desai does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU), the global financial technology platform that makes Intuit TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp, today announced the official opening of its new Atlanta office, an innovation hub for Intuit and home to Mailchimp.
• The 360,000 SF office is now one of Intuit’s largest global innovation hubs and its only office in the Southeast U.S.
• “It’s no secret that Atlanta is a bustling tech ecosystem that Mailchimp has been central to for over 20 years,” said Rania Succar, SVP and General Manager, Intuit Mailchimp.
• Intuit will continue to prioritize its commitment to the local Atlanta community and technology ecosystem by focusing on local vendors and small businesses for amenities and food services.

• The substance use prevention outreach event is sponsored by Alcohol Justice, Youth for Justice, San Rafael Alcohol and Drug Coalition, and Karma Club.
• It is open to all Marin teens ages 13-19, especially San Rafael and LGBTQ+ youth.
• The Big Game Watch Party will provide a rare "safe space" to watch the game.
• Alcohol Justice has long advocated against the billions Big Alcohol spends advertising alcohol during sporting events .