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    Harvard’s Taylor Swift Scholars Have Thoughts on ‘The Tortured Poets Department’

    The students taking Harvard University’s class on the singer are studying up. Their final papers are due at the end of the month.Fans of Taylor Swift often study up for a new album, revisiting the singer’s older works to prepare to analyze lyrics and song titles for secret messages and meanings.“The Tortured Poets Department” is getting much the same treatment, and perhaps no group of listeners was better prepared than the students at Harvard University currently studying Ms. Swift’s works in an English class devoted entirely to the artist. The undergraduate course, “Taylor Swift and Her World,” is taught by Stephanie Burt, who has her students comparing Ms. Swift’s songs to works by poets and writers including Willa Cather, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.On Thursday night, about 50 students from the class gathered in a lecture hall on campus to listen to Ms. Swift’s new album. Mary Pankowski, a 22-year-old senior studying history of art and architecture, wore a cream sweatshirt she bought at Ms. Swift’s Eras tour last year. The group made beaded friendship bracelets to celebrate the new album, she said.When the clock struck midnight, the classroom erupted into applause, and the analysis began. First, the group listened through the album once without discussing, just taking it all in.Certain lines, however, immediately caused a stir, said Samantha Wilhoit, a junior studying government — like a reference to the singer Charlie Puth and the scathing lyrics to the song “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” Ms. Wilhoit, 21, said.A line from the song “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” in which Ms. Swift sings, “I cry a lot but I am so productive,” also seemed to resonate, Ms. Wilhoit said, laughing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What 80 Artists, Musicians and Writers Are Starting Right Now

    Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches […] More

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    Tracy Chapman, Stephen King and Chloë Sevigny on Their Debuts

    Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches […] More

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    How to Begin a Creative Life

    Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches […] More

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    How Do You Become an Artist?

    Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches […] More

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    Ten Debuts Happening Right Now: Ice Spice, Sarah Pidgeon, Tyla

    Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches […] More

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    What Jon Bon Jovi Did After Losing His Voice

    Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches […] More

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    FKA twigs Dances Martha Graham: ‘This Is Art in Its Truest Form’

    Once a young bunhead, the acclaimed musical artist is taking the stage with the Martha Graham Dance Company. For her, it’s holy grail territory.The rebellious spirit of Martha Graham has found a rebellious soul mate in another creative powerhouse. A classically trained dancer, she’s known in the world as an acclaimed recording artist. She moves like water. Her pole dancing is pretty astounding, too. This is FKA twigs.On Thursday, she will make her debut as a dancer with the Graham company in the solo “Satyric Festival Song” (1932). “To me, this is, honestly, like winning a Grammy,” she said. “I feel like I’m winning a Grammy.”At the company’s gala performance, FKA twigs will slip into her costume, a bold and graphic striped dress designed by Graham. She will pop into the air as if the floor were on fire. She will twist and bend her body into jagged edges. And she will tease the audience with tilts of the head and dancing, expressive eyes. This is a solo inspired by rituals that Graham observed in the pueblos of the American Southwest, specifically, the kachina figures that served as comic relief at religious ceremonies. Graham was also poking fun at her serious, dramatic self.“To me, this is, honestly, like winning a Grammy,” FKA twigs said of dancing with the Graham company.Caroline Tompkins for The New York TimesAn artist of vast imagination whose music defies genre, FKA twigs is adventurous in all of her pursuits. Her shimmering, fluent physicality, displayed over the years in videos and performances, is equally fearless and lissome. “My values of success and achievement are maybe slightly different to other people’s,” FKA twigs said in an interview from London. Many of her colleagues will be at Coachella over the next two weeks, “which is obviously such an honor,” she said. “But I’ve spent the whole of my life in the dance studio. I studied Martha Graham’s technique at dance school. I took the class many times when I was a younger dancer.”The Graham company, though, didn’t know she had studied the technique. So how did this solo happen? Through that unofficial dance network known as Instagram.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More