Beyhive, stand up! And while you’re at it, raise those GPAs, too, you’re going to need it.
Yale University announced that it will soon offer a course on the legend herself, Beyoncé Knowles. The class, which will be called “Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics through Music,” will debut in the spring semester.
Daphne Brooks was the driving force behind getting this course approved. The African American studies and music professor previously dabbled with a similar music offering at Princeton, though that course was more broad covering the “Black Women in Popular Music Culture” according to The Guardian.
Brooks will spearhead the Beyoncé lectures and expects the class to quickly be scooped up by students. Who wouldn’t be interested in learning history through the lens of the Grammy’s most-nominated singer?
So, what can students expect to learn when enrolling in the class?
There will be a heavy emphasis on Beyoncé’s foray into politics and how her music stylistically changed since her debut to encompass social and political commentary.
“I’m looking forward to exploring her body of work and considering how, among other things, historical memory, Black feminist politics, Black liberation politics and philosophies course through the last decade of her performance repertoire as well as the ways that her unprecedented experimentations with the album form, itself, have provided her with the platform to mobilize these themes,” Brooks told The Guardian.
In the press release, the teacher noted that “by looking at culture through Beyoncé, it can invite us to think about the extent to which art can articulate the world we live in and nourish our spirits and give us the space to imagine better worlds and the ethics of freedom.”
There has been a recent boom in colleges offering classes centered on music icons. Harvard introduced a course around Taylor Swift. South Carolina gave us a Lady Gaga class. Many colleges, such as Ohio State, have taught lessons on The Beatles, too.
I suppose if students are going to be paying tens of thousands of dollars and enduring half a life’s worth of debt, the least the school could do is offer some cool courses on their favorite artists.
Now where can I sign up for Noah Kahan 101?
The post Yale University Students Can Now Take a Course on Beyoncé appeared first on VICE.
The post Yale University Students Can Now Take a Course on Beyoncé appeared first on VICE.
