Elly McCausland

Eleanor McCausland (born ) is an English literary scholar and culinary writer. An associate professor of English literature at Ghent University, she received global media attention in 2023 for teaching courses involving the study of the singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's lyrics.

Early life and education Eleanor McCausland was born in Cambridge between 1988 and 1989. She received a Bachelor's degree in English literature and a Master's in Middle English literature from the University of Oxford, and subsequently a PhD in English literature from the University of York. As a university student, she also became a close friend of fellow student Sushila Phillips and later dedicated an article to her in The Daily Telegraph following her death in 2021. While working as a waitress when she was 17, McCausland was inspired to learn the culinary arts from a co-worker.

Career While a student at York in 2013, McCausland entered a career as a food columnist at The Press. The Botanical Kitchen was published in 2020 by Absolute Press and received the Jane Grigson Trust Award prior to its release. The book centres on cooking with botanical ingredients, including fruits, leaves, flowers, and seeds. She later lived in Denmark, but at the time of the book's publication, McCausland was based in Oslo, The course, titled "Literature (Taylor’s Version)", ended up being well received by students, with McCausland lecturing double the amount of students she would usually expect from such a course in literature. McCausland's second book on Swift, Swifterature (2025), borrows from her experiences teaching courses on her lyrics since she started in 2023 and explores the relationship between Swift and English literature.