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A college course centered around Beyoncé‘s artistry and its connection to Black history and culture is coming to Yale University.
On Friday (Nov. 8), the Yale Daily News announced the university’s forthcoming class, “Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics through Music,” which will begin in spring 2025 and will be taught by Professor Daphne Brooks.
According to the publication, the course will examine the evolution of Bey’s “sonic, fashion and visual media” over the past decade and aims to “trace the relationship between Beyonce’s artistic genius and Black intellectual practice.”
Brooks, who previously included the Grammy Award winner as a subject in her Princeton course, “Black Women in Popular Music Culture,” spoke on the impact and influence the hitmaker has had throughout her career.
“[Beyoncé] is just so ripe for teaching at this moment in time,” Brooks told the Yale Daily News. “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 educator also likens Beyoncé’s role in “Black history, intellectual thought and performance” to vanguards including Josephine Baker, Diana Ross, Betty Davis and Grace Jones.
“Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics through Music” is the latest instance in which Knowles has been implemented into a collegiate curriculum.
Other institutions that have offered Beyoncé-inspired classes include Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Columbia University, Spelman College, and Northwestern University.
English (US) ·