Yale Professor Debuts Course Exploring Beyoncé And ‘Black Feminism’

Beyoncé has spent the latter half of her career studying little-known Black history, and now she has her own Ivy League curriculum. Her latest albums, Renaissance and Cowboy Carter, are prime examples of her passion. Yale University students will have the chance to study her place in Black history in a college course. Yale professor Daphne Brooks offers students an opportunity to dive deep into Beyoncé’s cultural impact this Spring.

The singer’s impact has been felt across the music industry. From inventing surprise album releases to pioneering visual albums, Beyoncé has continually progressed in the music industry. However, her impact is felt in other places as well. In her attempts to shed light on Black history, she has changed the way we study Black history. Professor Brooks plans to use the singer’s work as a musical history book of sorts.

According to Yale News, the college course will use Beyoncé’s work from 2013-2024 as a “lens” to observe Black history. Brooks thought up the class while she was still on the faculty at Princeton University. While there, she taught “Black Women in Popular Music Culture,” in which students heavily focused on Queen Bey.

“Those classes were always overenrolled,” Brooks told Yale News. “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 and centering her work pedagogically at some point.”

The news of this college course offering comes just after Vice President Kamala Harris lost the presidential election to Donald Trump. Brooks says now, this class is more important than ever as she told the publication, she believes Beyoncé’s contributions to culture and Black history need to be studied.

Beyonce speaks during a campaign rally for US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston, Texas, on October 25, 2024. Source: MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO / Getty

The Yale University Course On Beyoncé Will Study The Black Female Experience In The Media

As for what students will actually be studying in class, Yale News stated the college course will focus on Beyoncé’s “sonic, fashion and visual media.” Students will be charged with reading and discussing those who have written scholarly articles about the “Texas Hold ‘Em” singer, like Cedric Robinson and Karl Hagstrom Miller. Those lucky enough to enroll in the class will attend screenings of Bey’s work. They will also have the opportunity to dig through archives to study her impact.

Brooks clarified that it was vital for her to hone in on Beyoncé’s later works, i.e., Beyoncé, Lemonade, and Cowboy Carter, because they mark her distinction from “typical pop repertoire.”

“2013 was really such a watershed moment in which she articulated her beliefs in Black feminism,” Brooks stated. “[In Flawless], it was the first time a pop artist had used sound bites from a Black feminist like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It became more about ‘We are going to produce club bangers that are also galvanizing our ability to think radically about the state of liberation.”

The college course will also examine other Black women who impacted the music industry, such as Diana Ross, Grace Jones, and Josephine Baker. Additionally, Brooks designed the course to help students connect the dots between American history and the plight of minorities.

“I would hope that no matter what discipline you are pursuing in liberal arts at Yale,” Brooks said, “by looking at culture through Beyoncé, it can invite us to think about the extent to which art can articulate the world we live in and nourish our spirits and give us the space to imagine better worlds and the ethics of freedom.”

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Yale Debuts Course Exploring Beyoncé's Cultural Impact