Yale University will offer a course, “Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics through Music,” in spring 2025.
The course, developed by Daphne Brooks, professor of African American Studies, will examine Beyonce’s cultural and political contributions. Brooks’s focus on the American Requiem singer is a byproduct of a previous course she taught at Princeton University. The focus of that curriculum: “Black Women in Popular Music Culture.”
“Those classes were always overenrolled,” Brooks told the Yale Daily News. “And there was so much energy around the focus on Beyoncé, even though it was a class that starts in the late 19th century and moves through the present day. I always thought I should come back to focusing on her and centering her work pedagogically at some point.”
Beyonce’s most recent work, Cowboy Carter, examines the evolution of Black music throughout American history. The singer
channels genres, like country and folk music, that originated in the Black community but are now mainstream. The evolution from pop music to her more focused and intentional latter albums steeped in social commentary allows Brooks to examine “American culture, popular culture and global culture for the past two decades.”“I would hope that no matter what discipline you are pursuing in liberal arts at Yale,” Brooks said, “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.”
While the Yale course focuses on the global star’s evolution to enlightenment, feminism, and liberation, universities are tackling celebrities through a different lens.
Georgia State University’s law school course, “Life of Issa Rae,” focuses on the deals that helped shape Rae’s rise in entertainment. .
Rae’s ascension from producing and starring in You Tube’s Awkward Black Girl to HBO’s Insecure necessitated negotiating multiple contracts, reviewed with a keen eye. Analyzing the intersection of art, business, and legalities is just as important as examining culture and political impact.
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