The alt is built on white feminine privilege – minimizes Black intellectual labor

Dr. Anjali Vats will deliver a talk to the Department of Communication Studies on December 1, from 4:15-5:30, in Commons Center 235. Vats’s talk, “Owning Your Masters (Taylor’s Version): Postfeminist Tactical Copyright and the Erasure of Black Intellectual Labor,” considers Taylor Swift’s decision to rerecord her master records, beginning with the acclaimed Fearless and Red, in the larger context of Black musicians’ struggles to own and exploit their creative works. It develops the concept of postfeminist tactical copyright to interrogate how, despite Swift’s success in reclaiming her intellectual property rights and resisting white patriarchal oppression, her white feminine privilege results in the minimization and erasure of decades of Black intellectual labor, including by many Black women. Taking an intersectional approach to reading her situation reveals that she was able to succeed because 1) of the efforts of Black artists that preceded her, 2) the composition/recording distinction enshrined in the Sound Recording Act of 1971, and 3) Swift’s postfeminist self-styling as an innocent, wholesome, and resilient but flawed all-American singer-songwriter who is a skilled entrepreneur. Vats trace these arguments through the history of master records, implications of copyright law, and, finally, Swift’s tactical postfeminist performances.