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Welcome to Part II of my thoughts on "I Knew It, I Knew You," Taylor Swift‘s original song for Toy Story 5! If you know me, you know that Taylor Swift and Disney/Pixar are two of my favorite things in the world. (All I need now is a Starbucks collab drink based on the song in the movie and I’d have the trifecta...) Ever since this collaboration was announced, I’ve been having All The Thoughts. And: practice what you preach. One of the main, foundational ideas of my course is

Y'all, I did it. I made it to midnight last night. And I got the chance to listen to the song 4 or 5 times before I finally passed out. I managed to throw some incoherent initial thoughts up on Instagram, but long story short: this was ✨not✨ what I expected, but in the best way. I think it's fair to say that the general expectation for Taylor's song was something similar to Sarah McLachlan's rendition of "When She Loved Me" in Toy Story 2 -- a contribution to a scene that rea

...just say 'yes.' That's right: when the countdown ended Monday, Pixar & Taylor Swift officially announced the collaboration they had been ingeniously teasing. Taylor Swift has written an original song for Toy Story 5 titled "I Knew It, I Knew You." As she reveals in (the ✨heavily✨ Debut TV coded) Instagram post: "I fell instantly in love with Toy Story 5 when I was lucky enough to see it in its early stages and I wrote this song as soon as I got home from the screening." Th

OF COURSE I spent all morning working on the previous post, thinking there'd be weeks until we get an announcement or confirmation of some sort, only to find out it's less than 20 minutes from now? Three things to note here -- well, maybe 4: The mobile site looks very different than the desktop site. The mobile site features the clouds & the countdown, and Jessie is much smaller. The desktop site (above) features this beautiful landscape shot and Jessie is much more prominent

At this point, I think it's safe to say that something is happening between Taylor Swift and Pixar. Which, if you know anything about me at all, you know that I'm full on fangirling over here. An official Taylor Swift x Disney collaboration? cue Lizzie McGuire music With the benefit of hindsight, this isn't the biggest surprise. After all, Disney+ was the exclusive home to the Eras Tour concert -- and that was before Taylor also released the Eras Tour documentary and updat

It's a crazy time to be a Taylor Swift fan + scholar (because, yes, that's a real thing). One of the things that fascinates me the most about pop culture isn't the texts themselves. Don't get me wrong -- I love Taylor's music and Disney movies and the Percy Jackson books. But in addition to the texts, there's also all these conversations around them -- the narratives that get circulated, the perspectives that get amplified, and what those reveal about us, as a society, in an

First Wednesday Words of the year, because bronchitis (or something) has thrown me for a loop. Whatever it is, it's lingering, which has made anything beyond essential "must-do" tasks trifficult to complete. Case-in-point: I have lost all motivation for exercise, so in an effort to stay moving when all I want to do is hibernate, I set myself the task of listening to the entire back-catalog of Switched On Pop . I've listened to a few episodes here and there -- mainly the ones

It's Monday, November 10 -- and, aside from my birthday, it's also: Reputation 's birthday and the day Duke freshmen registered for Spring semester classes. Wierd thing to pair together, I know but hear me out: in my other professional life, I teach a Taylor Swift focused writing course, which I'll be offering in the Spring ( VERY much looking forward to teaching this new album). So as we're wrapping up all things Disney in the Fall, I've got half an eye on the Spring and Ta

I've been a bit quiet lately, mainly because my writing has, unusually, taken me elsewhere. A few weeks ago now, I received an email out of the blue from an editor at Public Humanities . He was inviting me to write an article on Taylor Swift's new album, The Life of a Showgirl . The editor -- who is a professor at Harvard -- pitched the piece as part of an "Of The Moment" roundtable, a space that " offers articles that are short, peer-reviewed, open access, and written for a