Starting next semester, Yale University students will be able to take a course on Beyoncé's music career.
Yale Daily News reported Friday is a new class titled “Beyoncé Makes History: The History, Culture, Theory, and Politics of the Black Radical Tradition Through Music.” The course will be taught by Daphne Brooks, professor of African American studies and music, and will primarily focus on the pop singer's career from 2013 to 2024.
”[This class] I thought it was a good idea to teach you. [Beyoncé] “She is very ripe for teaching at this time,” Brooks said, “because of all the groundbreaking advances and innovations that she has made, and the history and politics and black culture. The way she weaves a very detailed engagement with life into the aesthetics of her performance and how she uses it as a portal to thinking about history and politics, there is no one like her.”
The course is an outgrowth of a previous course Brooks taught at Princeton University, “Black Women in Popular Music Culture.” Brooks suggested it was natural to connect Kors to Beyoncé.
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“Beyoncé Makes History: The History, Culture, Theory, and Politics of the Black Radical Tradition Through Music” will be taught next semester. (Yi-Ching Li/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
“Those classes were always over capacity,” Brooks said. “And even though it was a class that started in the late 19th century and continues to the present, there was so much energy in focusing on Beyoncé. I always focused on her and researched her. I always thought we should go back to focusing pedagogically on that.'' To a certain point. ”
class description of Yale University Course Catalog “This class will use Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s 2010s and 2020s sonic and visual repertoire (2013 From his self-titled album to 2024's Cowboy Carter).” It has been practiced for centuries. ”
It goes on to say, “The purpose is twofold: to explore and analyze the dense, robust, and virtuoso aesthetic, sociohistorical, and political aspects of Beyoncé's groundbreaking mid-career body of work; The multi-dimensional form and content of her recordings, her history-making visual albums, and her groundbreaking black concert films are among the opportunities to utilize her aesthetic. Research scholarship and academic and cultural texts of the Black freedom struggle (history, Black feminist theory, philosophy, anthropology, art history, performance studies, musicology, political science, sociology, dance, American studies, religious studies, archives) ) This is a class that directly resonates with Beyoncé's sonic, visual, and live performance efforts.In other words, this is a class that traces the relationship between Beyoncé's artistic talent and Black intellectual practice. ”
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The Yale Bulldogs blow in the wind during the Ivy League tournament championship college lacrosse game between the Pennsylvania Quakers and the Yale Bulldogs at Stevenson Pinches Field on May 8, 2022 in Providence, Rhode Island. flag. (Photo by Erika Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Mr. Brooks emphasized the importance of this course in light of recent politics.
“2013 was a really big turning point where she really articulated her beliefs in black feminism,” Brooks said. ”[In Flawless]it was the first time a pop artist used the soundbites of black feminists like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It became, “We're going to produce club bangers that stimulate the ability to think fundamentally about the state of liberation.” ”
She further added, “Other artists weren't like that.” [embraced] Like Beyoncé, this work intersects politics and history. It's not to pit them against each other. It's to point out what institutions choose to focus on and what they often ignore, and often that's the artistic achievements of people of color, especially women of color. That's why this lesson needed to happen now. ”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Yale University for comment.
Beyoncé is one of the many celebrities who have been the subject of university classes. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
Even at Ivy League universities, some famous people have been the subject of university classes over the years. Rutgers University also proposed the “politicization of Beyoncé.''
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Taylor Swift courses were also available at Harvard University and the Clive Davis Institute at New York University.
