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Yale University Introduces Course on Beyoncé’s Cultural Impact
Grace Bower
The prestigious Yale University has announced a new course on the influence of 32-time Grammy Award winner Beyoncé. Titled ‘Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics through Music’. Classes begin in the upcoming 2025 spring semester.
The new course will be taught by the Ivy League University’s African American studies and music professor Daphne Brooks. Brooks was inspired after previously teaching a class at Princeton on ‘Black Women in Popular Music Culture’. The class covered pop music from the late 19th century through to recent times. Despite the lengthy timeline explored, she found that there was particular focus on Beyoncé’s cultural influence. And for this, she knew she had to return to it more exclusively.
‘Beyoncé Makes History’ aims to explore the singer’s political and cultural significance. It will delve into her art, fashion, visual media, and performance all through an intellectual lens. Particular focus will be on the past 11 years of her career. From her 2013 ‘Beyoncé’ album to 2024’s ‘Cowboy Carter’. This way, Brooks attempts to separate the singer from her “typical pop repertoire”. She intends to instead explore Beyoncé’s experience and impact as a Black woman in both media and politics.
“2013 was really such a watershed moment in which she articulated her beliefs in Black feminism,” Brooks told the Yale Daily News. “[In Flawless], it was the first time a pop artist had used sound bites from a Black feminist like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It became more about ‘We are going to produce club bangers that are also galvanizing our ability to think radically about the state of liberation’.”
Enrolled students will undertake the typical reading assignments and discussions. Key texts include those by Cedric Robinson, Karl Hagstrom Miller, and Hortense Spillers. They will also engage with public humanitarian projects, and work with the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library’s archives.
Following the 2024 elections, Brooks believes the Texas-native singer’s impact is more relevant than ever.
“[This class] seemed good to teach because [Beyoncé] is just so ripe for teaching at this moment in time,” the professor said.
“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 utilization of her voice as a portal to think about history and politics”
“There’s just no one like her.”
“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.”
Beyoncé now joins Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga as another artist with an offered university course to their name. As a course offered at the prestigious Yale University no less, mixed reviews have certainly come up. Many are questioning the seriousness of the Ivy League university itself. Nonetheless, previous similar classes on key figures in pop culture have typically seen high enrolment rates. Harvard’s Taylor Swift course with over 300 enrolling students is a clear indication of many students’ openness to these opportunities.
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