From “Spanish for Swift” to “The Politicization of Beyoncé,” these colleges have it all.
Classes are starting and the curriculum is all about Hollywood's biggest stars. While universities have always offered unique courses and areas of study, over the past decade celebrities have become a bigger part of the curriculum.
Megastars like Taylor Swift and Harry Styles have become the talk of many classrooms, giving students a new perspective on educational subjects like sociology and literature, and it's no wonder these courses are some of the most popular on campus.
Find out which universities offer creative courses…
1. Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift Taylor Swift is no stranger to college classes. In recent years, New York University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Miami, University of Delaware, and Berklee College of Music have all offered classes on the pop superstar. Stanford University has also gotten involved with two student-led classes: “All Too Well (Ten Week Version)” and “The Last Great American Songwriter: Storytelling Through the Ages with Taylor Swift.”
“The goal is to look at the album as a storybook and think about the broader ideas, themes and threads that the author or lyricist is trying to communicate, and then think about how you can study that like a novel,” student professor Ava Jeffs told Best Colleges.
Most recently, Colorado State University announced a summer course called “Spanish for Swift Fans,” which explores Taylor's lyrics and their global impact in Spanish-speaking countries, while Arizona State University offers a course called “The Psychology of Taylor Swift,” which covers social psychology topics such as music, social media, revenge, and romantic relationships.
2. Miley Cyrus
In 2014, Skidmore College announced that students could take a course called “Sociology.” Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender, and Media.” Professor Carolyn Chernoff explained that the class used Miley and her public persona “as a lens to explore sociological thinking about identity, entertainment, media, and fame.”
“Unfortunately, when we talk about female pop stars and female bodies, class, gender, sexuality and sexual performance are important, but race is even more important. [too] “The way we talk about white pop stars is completely different from the way we talk about women of color's bodies,” she told ABC News.[Miley] The representation of the female body in pop culture has become complicated, for better, for worse, and for worse.”
3. Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey It was selected as the focus of a New York University class in 2022. Taught by journalist and author Cathy Iandoli, “Topics in Recorded Music: Lana Del Rey” covered a range of topics from Lana's status as a pop star to her “relationship to feminism, her musical influences and artists who have influenced her, and her connection to social justice movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and #TimesUp.”
“In many ways, I feel like Lana Del Rey is both a blueprint and a lesson – a complex pop star who resonates deeply with her fans, not because of how they feel about her, but because of how they feel about her,” Cassie told Variety.
She continues, “Through her music, she has shifted the standards of baroque pop, and more specifically 'sad girl pop,' by exploring sometimes controversial and challenging subject matter. There are so many elements to this mosaic that we have now come to know as Lana Del Rey, and this course will examine all facets of it.”
4. Harry Styles
For the spring semester of 2023, Texas State University willHarry Styles Professor Louis Dean Valencia said he began studying Prince Harry in 2020, “focusing on his art, the evolution of masculinity over the past decade, celebrity culture and the internet.” As part of their final project, the class created a podcast.
“I've always wanted to teach history lessons that are not only fun, but that address a time that my students lived through and identified with,” he told NBC DFW. “I think studying the art, activism, consumerism and fandom surrounding Harry Styles gets us to some very important contemporary issues. I think it's so important for young people to know that the curriculum reflects what's important to them.”
5. Lady Gaga
In 2011, the University of South Carolina started a sociology course. lady gaga The course, titled “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame,” was taught by Professor Matthieu Deflem and aimed to “engage in sound, substantiated academic thinking” on topics related to her fame.
“We're going to look at Lady Gaga as a social event, so it's not the person or the music. It's a social event with 10 million followers on Facebook and six million on Twitter. So it's a social phenomenon,” he told the Daily Gamecock.
6. Kanye West
In 2015, Georgia State University professor Scott Heath wrote: Kanye WestThe class, titled “Kanye vs. Everybody: Black Poetry and Poetics from Hughes to Hip Hop,” aimed to “examine the continuing development of African-American poetry and poetics, particularly the use of language and literature to express blackness and Americanness,” while considering race, class, gender, and sexuality. During the class, students decoded Kanye's works and interviews.
Since then, Concordia University has also launched a class on Kanye called “Kanye vs. Ye: Genius by Design,” which explores “self-examination and reflection on contemporary issues (race, power, people and nation) through Kanye's passion, vision and work.”
7. Beyoncé
Beyoncé In 2014, Rutgers University devoted an entire course to the topic. Titled “The Politicization of Beyoncé,” the class used her music and career as a lens to explore the politics of race, gender, and sexuality in America. Professor Kevin Allred explained that he was inspired to create the course after teaching an Introduction to Women's Studies class, and that the curriculum explored Beyoncé's control over her career, her alter-ego Sasha Fierce, and the empowerment of women in the music industry.
“She's certainly pushing the boundaries. While other artists simply release music, she's crafting an epic narrative about her life, career and personality,” he told the university.
Since then, she has taught courses such as “Beyoncé, Gender, and Race” at the University of Copenhagen and “Beyoncé, Gender, and Race” at Arizona State University.lemonade: Beyoncé and Black Feminism.
8. Jay-Z
In 2011, Jay Z It was the subject of a Georgetown University class, “Sociology of Hip Hop: Jay-Z,” taught by author and entertainer Michael Eric Dyson, which examined the social commentary behind the rapper's lyrics regarding race, gender identity, sexuality, capitalism, and economic inequality. During the class, students were required to read Jay-Z's memoir. Decryption.
“we, [Jay-Z’s] Arts and crafts. It's worth considering the “rhetorical and literary hustle” behind the sexiness of these pop culture icons' billionaire counterparts, Michael told The Nation. “They are black men, [Jay-Z’s] “Humanity has had doubts since the beginning. A lot of them are white kids, and they've seen the culture through Jay-Z's eyes, so they bring with them a certain amount of criticism of the culture they come from.”
9. Bruce Springsteen
At Rutgers University, Bruce SpringsteenSpringsteen's career was studied in a course called “Springsteen's Vision of America.” The class looked at how Springsteen's career defined “personal growth and political and social change” for a generation. One of the students' first assignments was to write about a song that changed their life.
“It forces students to understand the journey that has led them to this moment in their lives,” Professor Louis Masur told Rutgers Today , “It forces them to think critically about music, songwriting and performance, and it gives me an insight into their perspective. It opens up a dialogue about the role of music in their lives and in American culture.”
Other universities have followed suit and are offering courses on the blues, such as Monmouth University's “Bruce Springsteen's America: Land of Hopes and Dreams.”
10. Madonna
In 1997, Madonna One of the first university courses dedicated to studying the pop star was at the University of Amsterdam, which launched a course called “The Madonna Phenomenon,” looking at the musician's work in music and film, her sex symbol persona and media presence, etc. Many other universities have also started studying the pop icon, which she finds fascinating.
“It makes me laugh, it's funny and it makes me happy because obviously I'm in a lot of people's minds, but I read about all this stuff and I read what I meant and I just think this is all coming from my subconscious and unconscious and I don't even think about it,” she told The New York Times. “Everyone has this obsession that I'm very calculating and manipulative, but I think it's because the things I do get on a lot of people's nerves and people just think I planned it. People think it didn't happen naturally, but it's true, trust me.”
11. Quentin Tarantino
Nevertheless Quentin Tarantino Though he never attended film school, his work has been studied at film schools across the country: in 2018, Middlebury College launched a class called “Anti-Heroes in the Films of Quentin Tarantino: Adaptation, Appropriation, Remix,” which explored Quentin's films and other pop culture figures, as well as how Quentin's work “seamlessly blends American and foreign cultural elements to create powerful anti-establishment characters.”
