Taylor Swift’s American Retreat: Covid, Cardigans, and Confinement in folklore
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Patrick Joseph Caoile
Patrick Joseph Caoile is a Filipino American writer and scholar from northern New Jersey. His research interests include Filipino American literature, the Gothic, and popular culture and media. His creative work is featured inSolstice Literary Magazine ,Chestnut Review ,storySouth , and elsewhere. His debut short story collectionTales from Manila Ave. (Sundress Publications) will release in fall 2025. He has received support from Roots.Wounds.Words and the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Currently, he is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at Hamilton College. His website is writingsbypatrick.com.
Abstract
Taylor Swift’s folklore (2020) is the acclaimed artist’s eighth studio album. With its indie folk and pastoral aesthetics, folkore is a departure from Swift’s previous pop ballads and dance anthems that marked her as America’s sweetheart and dominant popstar, dubbed “Miss Americana.” Although a fan-favorite, folklore is regarded by critics as subversive for the artist’s ability to defy the constraints of expectation; Swift has built her reputation at the center of the American pop music industry, only to retreat back to her musically “country” roots and deliver a surprise album during the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter explores folklore in the context of confinement on three levels. First, I include an introduction that details the surprise release of folklore in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, which I call ‘an era of confinement’ and provides necessary context around Swift’s conceptualization and production of the album. Second, by analyzing three songs – “the last great American dynasty,” “mad woman,” and “my tears ricochet” – this chapter points out folklore’s incorporation of minimalism, romanticism, and the Gothic which allows Swift to blend history, literature, and autobiography. Ultimately, this chapter explores how Taylor Swift leverages an aesthetics of confinement to dictate the narratives around her work and public persona as a female singer-songwriter.
Abstract
Taylor Swift’s folklore (2020) is the acclaimed artist’s eighth studio album. With its indie folk and pastoral aesthetics, folkore is a departure from Swift’s previous pop ballads and dance anthems that marked her as America’s sweetheart and dominant popstar, dubbed “Miss Americana.” Although a fan-favorite, folklore is regarded by critics as subversive for the artist’s ability to defy the constraints of expectation; Swift has built her reputation at the center of the American pop music industry, only to retreat back to her musically “country” roots and deliver a surprise album during the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter explores folklore in the context of confinement on three levels. First, I include an introduction that details the surprise release of folklore in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, which I call ‘an era of confinement’ and provides necessary context around Swift’s conceptualization and production of the album. Second, by analyzing three songs – “the last great American dynasty,” “mad woman,” and “my tears ricochet” – this chapter points out folklore’s incorporation of minimalism, romanticism, and the Gothic which allows Swift to blend history, literature, and autobiography. Ultimately, this chapter explores how Taylor Swift leverages an aesthetics of confinement to dictate the narratives around her work and public persona as a female singer-songwriter.
Chapters in this book
- Acknowledgments 5
- Table of Contents 7
- Confinement Studies in American Popular Culture 1
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Part I: Confinement Narratives on the Screen
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Cinema and TV Series
- The Individual vs. the Institution: Narratives of Confinement in New Hollywood Cinema 15
- Trapped in Bluebeard’s Castle: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as a Self-Contradictory Story of Empowerment and Imprisonment 31
- (Dis)ableing the Confinement: Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God 47
- Transformative Power of Confinement and Subversion of Identity in The Experiment (2010) 63
- “Where the City Started and the Suburbs Ended”: The (Sub)urban Confinement of Post-Industrial America in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows 87
- Never Let Me Go: Home, Family, and Confinement in Umma 103
- Confinement and Consciousness: Exploring the ‘ Nomadic Consciousness’ in Maid 117
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Documentaries
- Incarceration Documentaries after the Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography 133
- Dream in Place: Understanding Confinement through the Tactics of Fiction in Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack 151
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Part II: Confinement Narratives from/about American Prisons
- Claudia Jones and Angela Davis: Literature in Confinement 171
- Confined to the Margins: Necropolitics, American Identity, and Racial Separation in Assata by Assata Shakur 185
- Into the Lone Star Labyrinth: Texas Prison System Reflects The Death Gate Cycle Prison 201
- Our Time on the Rock: Narrating Voluntary Confinement in Tommy Orange’s There There 217
- “Have You Ever Seen a More Focused Killing Machine?” The Extreme Spectacle of Carceral Punishment in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars 235
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Part III: Confinement Narratives within Performances
- Taylor Swift’s American Retreat: Covid, Cardigans, and Confinement in folklore 253
- In The Devil's Grip: Competing Narratives of Confinement in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Opera 269
- Index
Chapters in this book
- Acknowledgments 5
- Table of Contents 7
- Confinement Studies in American Popular Culture 1
-
Part I: Confinement Narratives on the Screen
-
Cinema and TV Series
- The Individual vs. the Institution: Narratives of Confinement in New Hollywood Cinema 15
- Trapped in Bluebeard’s Castle: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as a Self-Contradictory Story of Empowerment and Imprisonment 31
- (Dis)ableing the Confinement: Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God 47
- Transformative Power of Confinement and Subversion of Identity in The Experiment (2010) 63
- “Where the City Started and the Suburbs Ended”: The (Sub)urban Confinement of Post-Industrial America in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows 87
- Never Let Me Go: Home, Family, and Confinement in Umma 103
- Confinement and Consciousness: Exploring the ‘ Nomadic Consciousness’ in Maid 117
-
Documentaries
- Incarceration Documentaries after the Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography 133
- Dream in Place: Understanding Confinement through the Tactics of Fiction in Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack 151
-
Part II: Confinement Narratives from/about American Prisons
- Claudia Jones and Angela Davis: Literature in Confinement 171
- Confined to the Margins: Necropolitics, American Identity, and Racial Separation in Assata by Assata Shakur 185
- Into the Lone Star Labyrinth: Texas Prison System Reflects The Death Gate Cycle Prison 201
- Our Time on the Rock: Narrating Voluntary Confinement in Tommy Orange’s There There 217
- “Have You Ever Seen a More Focused Killing Machine?” The Extreme Spectacle of Carceral Punishment in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars 235
-
Part III: Confinement Narratives within Performances
- Taylor Swift’s American Retreat: Covid, Cardigans, and Confinement in folklore 253
- In The Devil's Grip: Competing Narratives of Confinement in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Opera 269
- Index
