One question that Swift’s project raises is whether she is creating new works of art that are distinct from the originals. There are at least two arguments for denying that they’re distinct works of art. The first appeals to the fact that the two versions of each album sound so similar that listeners often need to pay careful attention to notice the differences between them. From this it concludes that, similar to how a person copying out War and Peace by hand would produce a genuine instance of Tolstoy’s novel, Swift has merely produced instances of the original albums by re-recording them. This is the formalist argument. The second argument appeals to the fact that Swift intends to subtly improve on the originals when re-recording them. From this it concludes that, similar to how Tolstoy’s drafts were War and Peace at earlier stages in its development, Swift’s original recordings are actually unfinished earlier stages of the Taylor’s Versions. This is the intentionalist argument.

In this presentation, Polite will defend the claim that Taylor’s Versions are new works of art distinct from the original recordings against these two arguments. In doing so, Polite will untangle some of the thorny metaphysical issues that Swift’s project raises.

This event is presented by the Department of Philosophy, the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, the Lamar Dodd School of Art, the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, and the UGA Humanities Council as part of the UGA Humanities Festival.