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English Professor Offers “Through the Eras” Literature Course Focusing on Taylor Swift Narratives
Kayla Branstetter will never forget the afternoon in the fall of 2022 when she and her educator colleagues were riding the B Line into downtown Chicago during a work trip. Their conversation centered on Taylor Swift’s newest album, Midnights. They suggested to the department chair that the college Crowder College should offer a course focusing on the most popular singer in North America. The professors were excited and surprised by the response: “You write the course description, and I will send it through to the curriculum.”
Soon afterwards, Kayla and her co-teacher were studying narratives about the massively popular singer-songwriter, weaving them into teachings on Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Since then, they have been teaching “Women in Literature” “Swiftie style” at the two-year community college located in Southwest Missouri. (Interesting fact- Taylor Swift is distantly related to Emily Dickinson). “Swift and Dickinson both descend from a 17th century English immigrant (Swift’s 9th great-grandfather and Dickinson’s 6th great-grandfather who was an early settler of Windsor, Connecticut),” Ancestry.com shared with the Today Show. Link to: Taylor Swift and Emily Dickinson are cousins, Ancestry.com reveals.
English instructor, TEDx speaker, Author, Artist, Researcher and Mom
The popular-culture-meets-the-Classics course speaks volumes about Kayla’s narrative practice as an academic and women’s equality advocate. As an English instructor, TEDx speaker, author, artist, researcher and mom of two young daughters, the Purdy, MO resident is always looking for ways to raise the voices of women. Much of her work focuses on disarming the controversy and stigmas that mire political and social justice efforts to improve women’s lives.
“We have such calculated misogynistic hate campaigning to take Taylor down,” she says, referring to headlines that proclaim: ‘She always plays the victim. She’s untrustworthy. She dates too much. She’s too ambitious. She’s a snake. She’s a witch’ “Swift herself is aware of such labels, and one of the traits I admire about her is her talented skill at being a storyteller and incorporating said labels into her album motifs and song lyrics.”
In analyzing Taylor Swift’s writings and anti-fan base in comparison to their chosen classics, Kayla says students are studying whether societal views of successful women create a strong dislike and negative labeling.
Launching a course focused on Swift’s songwriting narratives and the stories about her in the headlines gives students the opportunity for deeper exploration of other influential women who suffered uncanny experiences — which labeled them as “witches”—like Cleopatra, Mary Magdalen, Hypatia, Byzantine Empress Theodora, Joan of Arc, Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I, Catherine de Medici, Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris…. and many more.
Throughout the course, Kayla, co-teacher Leandra Toomoth, and their students “explore and contextualize the examination of different themes, ideas, and social issues.”
Life Through the Eras of Educator, Author and Mom
“Policies that improve the lives of women shouldn’t be controversial and shouldn’t be complicated,” says Kayla. “In my work and in my writing, I talk to women every day who offer their stories and powerful insights on what is needed for reproductive, economic, and social equality. What is good for women is good for families and is good for our country.”
Kayla says she was drawn to the injustices pushed on women since an early age.
While growing up, she split her time between rural Missouri and the suburbs of Denver. With her feet in two worlds, she became adept at connecting with people from diverse backgrounds. Kayla has a passion for breaking through barriers to achieve gender equality and amplifying marginalized voices.
“My mother got pregnant when she was 17 and faced many stigmas because of that,” says Kayla. “She dropped out of high school before beginning her junior year. She did receive her GED and earned her associate degree at Crowder College when I was four years old. Then she graduated from Missouri Southern State University with her bachelor's degree in sociology when I was in the eighth grade. Upon graduation, she began a decade-long career in social work.
“I grew up in a world of food stamps, Medicaid and domestic violence inflicted by my stepdad. Then I would travel to Denver to my father’s house, living in between the worlds of situational poverty and the upper middle-class lifestyle of my father,” adds Kayla.
“I learned that women don’t leave abuse, they escape,” says Kayla.
Kayla’s own struggles with miscarriage and infertility and the insensitive comments from others (many of them from women at the conservative church she and her husband attended and unsolicited shared with her about being a childless wife) also have inspired her mission to share the authentic and real narratives of women.
“I want women to know they are not alone,” she says. Kayla holds a MALS degree in Art, Literature, and Culture from the University of Denver. She has been published in over 40 journals worldwide, including The Kansas City Star.
These days, she’s beyond busy with the lights of her life: daughters, Berlin (9) and Leigha (4).
Next for Kayla? She is currently working on a nonfiction book where women tell their stories about abortion, birth, and infertility. Don't Be an Athena is scheduled to be published in January 2025.
“I believe that storytelling can be the key to breaking down barriers,” says Kayla.
Don’t Be an Athena will present a raw, real look at the topic of women’s choices—reproductive health, mental health, choices surrounding bodily autonomy, and experiences with trauma in which they were not able or allowed to exercise free choice. All of this exploration is done through one-on-one interviews with a plethora of women who have bravely shared their truths—always honestly, but sometimes in heart-wrenching, uncomfortable detail.
“Don’t Be an Athena will make you uncomfortable, but it is this discomfort that we all need to experience to realize the depth and breadth of the issues surrounding these sensitive topics,” says Kayla. “Above all, Don’t Be an Athena will open the reader's eyes and expose realities that are often kept in the shadows.
The Narrative Mindworks Questionnaire
Kayla Branstetter on life, Swifties, motherhood and Gloria Steinem….
1. What is your idea of happiness?
My idea of happiness centers on witnessing the accomplishments of others: my daughters, my students, my friends, and my family. I love clapping for others on their journeys. I have students who are former drug addicts graduating college with their degrees and seeing them walk across the stage makes me happy. My oldest daughter is a softball player, and watching her practice for hours every day to succeed when she steps up to home plate, makes me happy. My youngest daughter is convinced she wants to be Taylor Swift when she grows up, so attending her “concerts” belting out Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” paints a grin on my face. In the perfect world, humans having access to healthcare, resources, and education will make me happy, because I believe every person deserves these opportunities.
2. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
My greatest achievement is being a mother to two strong-willed and determined girls who I believe will change the world. Outside of being a mother, graduating with my master’s degree from my dream school, the University of Denver, is my greatest achievement followed by writing a book.
3. What is your most marked characteristic?
My passion and empathy. I believe in Ann Voskamp’s quote, “Shame dies when stories are told in safe places.” I try to incorporate this into my teaching and writing. We are so often controlled by our fear which is tied to our shame.
4. What do you value most in your friends?
I value conversation, laughter, and experiences. There are moments I crave intellectual conversation, but I love traveling and attending Broadway shows and new restaurants. I also value honesty, and I have a few friends who are not afraid to critique my writing or my speeches when I need them to.
5. Who are your favorite writers?
Are you ready for a long litany of talented writers? Etaf Rum, Maya Angelou, Annie Dillard, Mary Roach, David Sedaris, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Brontë, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Stephen King, Gloria Steinem, Roxane Gay, Anita Diamant, Isabel Wilkerson, Michele Harper, Sylvia Plath, Taylor Swift, Margaret Atwood, Leslie Marmon Silko, Joy Harjo, and more. As a writer, I am constantly reading, and each year I am introduced to new writers that impress me with their style, rhetoric, and skill.
6. Who is your hero of fiction?
This one is tough because I have two characters in mind: Hester Prynne from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Isabella Linton/Heathcliff from Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. These two women displayed a tremendous amount of courage and agency during a time that didn’t value such characteristics from women.
7. What is your motto?
As a writer, my go-to phrase is “The worst they’re going to tell me is no.”
8. What book are you reading?
I am currently reading Jesmyn Ward’s Let Us Descend. Survivor, Passionate.
9. Describe yourself in six words.
Determined, Empathetic, Understanding, and a mother.
