Classes on celebrities like Taylor Swift and Rick Ross are engaging a new generation of law students

DES MOINES, Iowa (`) — A South Dakota law professor typically teaches on complex topics such as tort law and natural resources. But next semester, him and his fearless Students mess things up by focusing their attention on them Taylor Swift.

Sean Kammer wanted his legal writing course to use music and art to help his students think through legal language and craft persuasive arguments. The self-proclaimed “Swiftie” believed that focusing on the cultural icon was also a way to connect with his students.

Never in his Wildest dreams Kammer had expected the attention the announcement generated – the class filled quickly and jealous alumni even got in touch.

“The response from the students was exciting,” he said. “If we can have fun while exploring some of these complex theoretical problems or questions, I think students will be inspired to think deeper and grow.”

Swifties At the University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law, people aren’t the only ones having fun. Law professors across the country are increasingly drawing on popular culture and celebrity — sometimes with the help of celebrities themselves — to appeal to a new generation of students and contextualize complicated concepts in the real world.

Courses on Swift, Rick Ross and Succession Supplement traditional law school courses with fun and accessible experiences that professors say they often haven’t had themselves.

Georgia State University College of Law students were in a rush to get to class every day — especially on Tuesday, when they heard directly from Ross on the final day of a class that chronicled the legal intricacies of the rapper, record executive and Wingstop franchise could life of the owner.

Moraima “Mo” Ivory, director of the school’s entertainment, sports and media law program, wants her students to see for themselves what’s in the albums, TV shows and movies they enjoy. Each year she selects a star and invites guest speakers from her world, as well as the title character herself, to bring legal cases, defenses and drama to life.

“We talk about critical legal principles, but we observe them as they happen and how they happen,” she said. “It really lights up law students.”

Ivory said she could have heard a pin drop in a class on mixtapes with guest DJ Drama.

“I never had the experience of leaving law school excited about what I had learned,” Ivory said.

For Luke Padia, a third-year law student, the experience makes concepts more tangible than reading a textbook or case law, he said.

“There are no problems on the other courses,” said the 26-year-old from Lawrence, Kansas. “I just find that my attention is more easily captured when I sit in class and listen to Steve Sadow talk about how he got Rick Ross out of prison than when I’m studying constitutional law, tort law, or whatever must deal with. ”

Frances Acevedo, a 25-year-old from Pembroke Pines, Florida, in her third year of law school, said she left the class with an understanding of how important a team is to an artist’s success – a message Ross emphasized.

“I can sit at the table and talk money with multi-billionaires,” Ross told students, faculty and guests gathered for the course finale. “But when it’s time for me to move forward, I’ll sit down with my team.”

Courses on A-list celebrities have fascinated undergraduates and graduate students across the country for years, increasingly in courses that analyze race and gender. The attention to women artists and artists of color is a sign of growing respect for them and for different forms of artistic expression, said Kinitra Brooks, an English professor at Michigan State University.

Brooks’ course on Beyoncés Lemonade album and Black Feminism was so popular that she published a reader for other professors to use. The pop culture material provides “immediate reference,” which Brooks says increases the likelihood that students will participate, have their ideas challenged and also be willing to challenge the artist.

Bella Andrade, a student at Arizona State University, looks forward to her class on the psychology of Taylor Swift every week. The self-proclaimed “big Swiftie” has been listening to her music “for ages,” but the class includes a range of fans. There are “10 out of 10” Swifties, along with people who barely know her music, which “leads to some really great conversations,” she said.

“I think I have developed a much deeper understanding of various topics in social psychology,” said Andrade, a Minneapolis native. “When I take topics that I already knew or have heard of before, but then apply them in some way to something that I really care about… the meaning really solidifies.”

Courses that incorporate popular culture provide a different context for the fundamentals students learn in their traditional courses, said Cathy Hwang, who co-taught a Succession-inspired corporate law course at the University of Virginia last year.

The class examined the show’s sensitive – and often ambiguous – legal matters, such as hostile takeovers and securities law. Hwang said she tries to inspire and foster a love of learning in students who “grew up with a different approach to technology and pop culture than I did.”

“For me, it’s not so much what my teaching style is, but what the students’ learning style is?” said Hwang. “As a teacher, I think it’s important to continue to develop and try to meet students where they are.”

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Associated Press video reporter Sharon Johnson contributed from Atlanta.