The Singer-Songwriter: Intimacy, Parasociality, and the Confessional

Harvard FAS

Over the past few decades, audiences have grown increasingly enamored with the figure of the singer-songwriter. Listeners today crave the confessional and the direct address, modes of intimacy through which artists sell themselves as much as their music. In this course, we will explore the biographies and oeuvres of popular musicians who divulge their private lives—or at least seem to—for our pleasure. In particular, we will consider how the relationships between artists and audiences…