Yale University introduce course on Beyoncé

nme.com:

Beyoncé is coming to Yale University.The course is named Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics through Music, and will examine Beyoncé’s work from her 2013 self-titled album to 2024’s ‘Cowboy Carter‘, as a lens to study Black history, intellectual thought and performance.Students will participate in screenings of the ‘Drunk In Love’ singer’s visual albums, discussions on works about her from various scholars, crafting playlists linking her discography to her musical predecessors and more.Speaking to the Yale Daily News, Daphne Brooks, professor of African American Studies and Music, highlighted the recent US election as a prime opportunity to recognise and study Beyoncé’s contributions to American culture.“The number of breakthroughs and innovations she’s executed and the way she’s interwoven history and politics and really granular engagements with Black cultural life into her performance aesthetics and her utilisation of her voice as a portal to think about history and politics — there’s just no one like her,” she said.A host of university classes dedicated to pop stars have cropped up in recent years.

Taylor Swift in particular has been the subject of many, including a Psychology of Taylor Swift course at Arizona State University, a class at Stanford University dissecting Swift’s ‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version)’ and a UC Berkeley course which explores the business success of the pop star – all announced last year alone.Before that, in February 2022, New York University’s Clive Davis Institute launched a course that covered “Swift’s evolution as a creative music entrepreneur, the legacy of pop and country songwriters, discourses of youth and girlhood, and the politics of.