Beyonce Will Be The Focus Of A New Class At Yale

BYCole Blake71 Views
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Entertainment: 59th Annual GRAMMY Awards
Feb 12, 2017; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Beyonce performs during the 59th Annual Grammy Awards at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY NETWORK © Robert Hanashiro-Imagn Images
Students at Yale will be learning about Beyonce.

Beyonce will be the focus of a new class at Yale University taught by professor Daphne Brooks. Brooks recently spoke about the offering during an interview with the school's Daily News, revealing it will “examine Beyoncé’s artistic work from 2013 to 2024 as a lens to study Black history, intellectual thought and performance." The title of the course is: “Beyonce Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics Through Music.”

“[This class] seemed good to teach because [Beyoncé] is just so ripe for teaching at this moment in time,” she told the outlet. “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.” Brooks previously taught a class on Beyonce at Princeton University, but that course focused on her cultural impact.

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Artist Beyoncé Knowles-Carter takes the stage during a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris at Shell Energy Stadium on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Houston, Texas. © Aaron E. Martinez / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Beyonce isn't the first singer to become the focus of a university course. In recent years Kendrick Lamar and his album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, were the subject of a class at Georgia Regents University a few years ago, while other colleges have hosted courses on JAY-Z, Bruce Springsteen, Drake, The Weeknd, and 2Pac, among other artists.

The Yale course comes just months after the release of Beyonce's eighth studio album, Cowboy Carter, on which she ventured into country music. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with 407,000 album-equivalent units. It's the second project in a trilogy, following 2022's Renaissance. Details on her third project in the group have yet to be announced. Be on the lookout for further updates on Beyonce on HotNewHipHop.

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About The Author
Cole Blake is a current staff writer at HotNewHipHop based out of New York City. He began writing for the site as an intern back in 2018 while finishing his B.A. in Journalism at St. John’s University. In the time since, he’s covered a number of breaking stories for HNHH. These include the ongoing YSL RICO trial, the allegations surrounding Diddy, and much more. His work also extends outside of hip-hop, having written extensively about a myriad of topics including politics, sports, and pop culture. He’s attended several music festivals to provide coverage for the site as well, such as Rolling Loud and Governors Ball.
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