Introduction: Taylor Swift

This introduction opens the first of two special issues of Popular Music and Society devoted to Taylor Swift. After surveying existing Swift scholarship, we introduce eight essays spanning musical analysis, literary interpretation, critical theory, ethnography, and fandom studies. They move from the interior structures of songs outward to the demands of intimacy and the exclusions of nostalgia, then to fan practices: marching band performances, reaction videos, and archives of surprise songs. Together they show how communities build meaning around Swift through the exchange between her artistic choices and audience responses. A second issue turns to representation, identity, and cultural politics.