A new course centered around Beyoncé Knowles Carter’s cultural impact will be offered to students at Yale University in the upcoming spring semester.
The course, Beyoncé Makes History, will be taught by Professor Daphne A. Brooks, William R Kenan Jr. Professor of African American Studies, American Studies, Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies and Music at Yale University.
Brooks explained she has been including Beyoncé's work in her curriculum since 2008.
She added the artist's self-named album Beyoncé from 2013 was a pivotal moment in her career and something worth examining.
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“The argument can be made that no other contemporary artist compares to her when it comes to overtly engaging a combination of history and cultural memory,” Brooks said.
The course will engage Beyoncé's albums and the ties to topics of African-American liberation struggles, Jim Crow segregation in American culture and the impact of LGBTQ+, amongst others.
“Think about Lemonade, my students understand that Lemonade invokes a variety of African-American visual cultures and themes, engaging African-American liberation struggles," Brooks said.
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She emphasized her class is not a way to engage students through their celebrity interests, but rather a chance to think analytically about the culture they consume.
“This is a chance to create conversations between her music and long intellectual traditions inside of the academy of African-American studies, literary studies and American history and beyond,” Brooks said.
A Yale student said she is looking forward to the upcoming course.
“Sometimes the things that we study feel very abstract, but actually what impacts people is the things that they listen to everyday, the things they watch everyday,” Carla Melaco said.
Another student added the course could be a good way to dive into deeper conversations.
“Seems interesting to me, I think it can provide a lot of unique perspectives,” Olhaya Rynich said.
