A course dedicated to studying Beyoncé is coming to Yale University next Spring. It’s not the first time that singers and songwriters have been the focus on a university course.
With a record amount of Grammy nominations and acclaim as one of the most influential artists in music history, Beyoncé will be the subject of a new course at Ivy League university Yale next year.
Titled “Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition, Culture, Theory & Politics Through Music,” the class will focus on the period from her 2013 self-titled album through this year’s ‘Cowboy Carter’.
The country album received 11 Grammy nominations last week, after being snubbed at the Country Music Association Awards.
The Grammy noms have made the 43-year-old singer the most Grammy-nominated artist of all time, with 99 nods in total.
According to the description of the module, it will also zone in on how the singer, songwriter and entrepreneur has generated awareness and engagement in social and political ideologies.
Yale University’s African American Studies Professor Daphne Brooks intends to use the performer’s repertoire as a “portal” for students to learn about Black intellectuals, from Frederick Douglass to Toni Morrison.
“We’re going to be taking seriously the ways in which the critical work, the intellectual work of some of our greatest thinkers in American culture resonates with Beyoncé’s music and thinking about the ways in which we can apply their philosophies to her work” and how it has sometimes been at odds with the “Black radical intellectual tradition,” Brooks said.
Beyoncé is not the first performer to be the subject of a college-level course. There have been courses on singer and songwriter Bob Dylan over the years and several colleges and universities have offered classes on the singers Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift.
Recently, the University of Ghent in Belgium also began introducing courses tailored to the study of Swift’s lyricism and pop superstardom.
Brooks sees Beyoncé in a league of her own, however, crediting the singer with using her platform to “spectacularly elevate awareness of and engagement with grassroots, social, political ideologies and movements” in her music, including the Black Lives Matter movement and Black feminist commentary.
“Can you think of any other pop musician who’s invited an array of grassroots activists to participate in these longform multimedia album projects that she’s given us since 2013?” asked Brooks. She noted how Beyoncé has also tried to tell a story through her music about “race and gender and sexuality in the context of the 400-year-plus history of African-American subjugation.”
“She’s a fascinating artist because historical memory, as I often refer to it, and also the kind of impulse to be an archive of that historical memory, it’s just all over her work,” Brooks said. “And you just don’t see that with any other artist.”
For those who manage to snag a seat next semester, they shouldn’t get their hopes up about seeing Queen Bey in person.
“It’s too bad because if she were on tour, I would definitely try to take the class to see her,” Brooks said.
Additional sources • AP
