A course dedicated to studying Beyoncé is coming to Yale University next Spring. It’s not the first time that singers and songwriters have been the focus on a university course. With a record amount of Grammy nominations and acclaim as one of the most influential artists in music history, Beyoncé will be the subject of a new course at Ivy League university Yale next year.
Titled “Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition, Culture, Theory & Politics Through Music,” the class will focus on the period from her 2013 self-titled album through this year's ‘ . The country album received , after being . The Grammy noms have made the 43-year-old singer the most Grammy-nominated artist of all time, with 99 nods in total.
According to the description of the module, it will also zone in on how the singer, songwriter and entrepreneur has generated awareness and engagement in social and political ideologies. Yale University's African American Studies Professor Daphne Brooks intends to use the performer's repertoire as a “portal” for students to learn about Black intellectuals, from Frederick Douglass to Toni Morrison. “We’re going to be taking seriously the ways in which the critical work, the intellectual work of some of our greatest thinkers in American culture resonates with Beyoncé's music and thinking about the ways in which we can apply their philosophies to her work" and how it has sometimes been at odds with the “Black radical intellectual tradition,�.