Hey Miss Carter! Singer and superstar Beyoncé is used to being under the spotlight but she will be viewed in a whole new way very soon.
The Single Ladies singer is giving people something to think about as a university course is launching imminently that looks at all aspects of her life.
The course – to be offered by Ivy League institution Yale University – will look at Beyoncé’s political and cultural impact and allow super fans to gain expert knowledge in all things Queen B, working their way though her 2013 collection, into her new hits from albums including Lemonade, Renaissance and her more recent multi-Grammy nominated country album Cowboy Carter.
Students will be able to “dig deeper” into the “artistic genius” of Beyoncé in the course, which is called Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics Through Music and starts next spring. It is being offered through the university’s humanities and art department. As well as looking at her biggest and best hits, and multiple award nominations and wins over her career, it will delve into the social impact Beyoncé has had on America and the world as a whole.
Yale’s course will also look at how she performs in concerts and examine how she uses her work to get across her “intellectual thoughts and activism”.
Beyoncé, 43, will then be compared to other black feminists over the years to look at the philosophy behind her messages as well as taking in “art history, performance studies and musicology”.
The class will be taught by writer and black studies scholar Daphne Brooks, who said the timing is perfect for the innovative course to launch.
Speaking to the Yale Daily News, she said: “This class seemed good to teach because Beyoncé is just so ripe for teaching at this moment in time.
“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.”
The course comes after Ms Brooks’ previous classes, which touched on the impact of Beyoncé and were popular with students.
Her previous class at Princeton University was titled Black Women in Popular Music Culture and featured Beyoncé as a reference in looking at her cultural impact.
She explained: “Those classes were always overenrolled. 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 work pedagogically at some point.”
This will be her first opportunity to devote an entire lecture course solely to Beyoncé.
The superstar hit headlines after her country album, the first she has ever done, received a total of 11 Grammy nominations.
The nod made Beyoncé the most Grammy-nominated artist in history, with 99 nominations over the years.
