We Can’t Shake Off How Good This Taylor Swift Lit Salon Was
By Daniel Graham ’26
Swifties, the Swiftie-curious, and the Swiftie-averse all crowded into the Old Main 4 lounge on Wednesday, October 8th for the long-awaited Taylor Swift Literary Salon, courtesy of Professor Jim Dawes and student worker Callisto Martinez ’26. The evening that followed included analysis, trivia, and crafting, all centered around T-Swizzle herself.
Jim, never going out of style, turned up sporting a Chiefs shirt that read “Go Taylor’s Boyfriend.”
Of course, no Swift-salon would be complete without Taylor Swift- (and autumn-) themed food and beverages. Department Coordinator and resident Swift-sleuth Jan Beebe determined that pumpkin bread, pumpkin spice lattes, and macarons were all Swift’s favorites (though Jan noted that chicken tenders would also have been applicable, if out-of-budget).
In addition to the sweets, lit salon attendees had the chance to make friendship bracelets with colorful beads, letters, and string supplied at the entrance to the lounge. Rumor has it that Jim made a bracelet to consecrate his friendship with Professor Michael Prior—though he only spelled out “Mike.” It’s Nice To Have A Friend. Reports suggest that this might be Jim’s first friendship bracelet. It is unclear if Prof. Prior made one for him in return.
“It was very sweet to tie the bracelet around Jim’s wrist and think that it would fit around Michael’s,” Callisto said. “Turns out, Jim has very large wrists. I was expecting Jim to use the colors of a Taylor Swift album for the bracelet, but he devised a rainbow of his own imagination.”
The event started with an opinion survey. Few attendees identified themselves as Swifties, and, in fact, most claimed to be Taylor Swift haters. 40 percent of participants said they were disappointed in Swift’s new album Life of a Showgirl (which had just released the Friday before) and no one expressed much excitement about the piece, so Jim skipped the questions about everyone’s favorite part.
It wouldn’t be a lit salon without some literary analysis, so Jim also gave the students a pop quiz about devices from their favorite Tortured Poet. Questions started out light, but soon plumbed the depths of participants’ poetic knowledge, interrogating them about everything from epistrophe to epizeuxis.
“That was deliberately a mean test of the most arcane references possible,” Jim said. “If they had gotten them, I would’ve been surprised, but through elimination, some cunningly got good answers.”
Done with the academic bits, the main event commenced: Taylor trivia. Jim’s questions stretched the Swift-savvy of the audience, asking about names, titles, and years important to T-Swizzle.
“I’m new to Taylor Swift, frankly,” Jim said. “I researched. I was stunned that people knew that stuff.”
After the first round, team Solidarity had zero points, to which Jim said, “A monkey could have gotten one.” As it turned out, team Phil did get one, to demonstrate its primate prowess, if nothing else.
Other teams had more success, with team “Wood” (named after the universally panned song on Swift’s new album) in the lead. Not to brag, but I was on this team (I did not contribute a single answer).
In the second round, though, team “Wood” wasn’t Ready For It (and lost the person who had answered all our questions in the first round). Team “Wood” dropped to second, surpassed by Team Swiftie. You could say that they knew it All Too Well.
“I’ve done salons before where it’s a big group discussion, which is cool, I totally dig that,” Jim said. “But this felt more like just everyone was playing together, which you don’t see a ton of. It was delightful to see people gathering in those little clusters smiling and laughing and playing was cool.”
We thank Professor Jim Dawes for taking the time to host this literary salon and have fun with us in the department!