Rutgers University teaching class on Beyoncé

By Chris Coplan on January 27th, 2012 in News

As planet Earth’s resident pop goddess, Beyoncé is the focus of unceasing adulation from millions of followers the world over. Now, the Queen B is receiving another kind of attention as the subject of a class at Rutgers University. Between this and the Jay-Z class at Georgetown, you can almost get a Bachelor’s degree in the family Carter.

As NME points, the university’s Women’s and Gender Studies department is currently offering a course called “Politicising Beyoncé”. According to Rutgers’ website, Bey’s songs and lyrics are “used as lenses to explore American race, gender, and sexual politics” alongside works from black feminist heavyweights like Alice Walker (The Color Purple) and abolitionist Sojourner Truth. Course topics include the “extent of Beyoncé’s control over her own aesthetic, whether her often half-naked body is empowered or stereotypical, and her more racy performances as her alter ego, ‘Sasha Fierce’.”

Study up on Beyoncé by watching the music video for “Dance For You”, from last year’s #13 album of the year, below.

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  • Jlansing29

    The complete acceptance that colleges have given up, and that they cater to the constant need for entertainment in the citizens they are suppose to educate. How do we study Alice Walker’s writings with Beyonce’s lyrics? How do we compare Sojourner Truth with Beyonce? What is going on here? So Beyonce let’s herself be viewed as a sexual object to make money, and there is some kind of blame on society? How is this even remotely connected to say The Color Purple? I know that someone will now connect the two for me, and I can connect two of anything also, but this is a complete joke.