Yale University will launch a course devoted to Beyoncé and her legacy

WITH a record 99 Grammy nominations and recognized as one of the crucial influential artists in music history, pop superstar Beyoncé and her vast cultural legacy will be the topic of a recent course at Yale University next yr.

The class, titled “Beyoncé Making History: Black Radical Tradition, Culture, Theory, and Politics Through Music,” will deal with the period since her 2013 self-titled album. “Cowboy Carter” and how a world-renowned singer, songwriter and entrepreneur generated awareness and engagement with social and political ideologies.

Daphne Brooks, a professor of African-American studies at Yale University, intends to use the artist’s extensive repertoire, including recordings of her live performances, as a “portal” for college kids to study black intellectuals, from Frederick Douglass to Toni Morrison.

“We will take seriously how the critical and intellectual work of some of our greatest thinkers in American culture resonates with Beyoncé’s music and consider how we can apply their philosophies to her work,” and how at times this has been at odds with “black radical intellectual tradition,” Brooks said.

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Beyoncé, whose full name is Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter, shouldn’t be the primary performer to take a college-level course. Over the years, courses have been offered on singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, and more recently, several colleges and universities have offered courses on the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan offered classes with singer Taylor Swift and its lyrics and popular culture legacy. This also applies to law professors who hope to engage a recent generation of lawyers by utilizing a famous star like Swift to give context to complex, real-world concepts.

Professors at other colleges and universities have also included Beyoncé of their courses or suggested classes in regards to the superstar.

Brooks considers Beyoncé in a league of her own, crediting the singer with using her platform to “spectacularly raise awareness of and engagement with grassroots, social and 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 has invited a group of grassroots activists to participate in these long-running multimedia album projects that he has been commissioning from us since 2013,” Brooks asked. She noted that Beyoncé also tried to tell a story through her music about “race, gender and sexuality in the context of the over 400-year history of enslavement of African Americans.”

“She’s a fascinating artist because historical memory, as I often call it, and the impulse to be an archive of that historical memory, is present throughout her work,” Brooks said. “You just don’t see that from any other artist.”

Brooks previously taught a well-received class on Black women in popular music culture at Princeton University and found that her students were most excited in regards to the section on Beyoncé. She expects her classes at Yale to be especially popular, but she tries to keep the category relatively small.

Those who manage to snag a spot next semester shouldn’t get their hopes up about seeing Queen Bey in person.

“It’s a real shame because if she was on tour, I would definitely try to take a class and see her,” Brooks said.