Staff Writer
Beyoncé fans, get ready to pack your bags and make your way to New Jersey!
Oh and pull out a loan as well as enroll in Rutgers University because they are now offering the course “Politicizing Beyoncé” as part of its Department of Women’s and Gender Studies.
The course uses Beyoncé’s music and career as lenses to explore American race, gender, and sexual politics. The topics include the extent of the singer’s control over her own aesthetic, whether her half-naked body is empowered or stereotypical, and her performances as her alter ego “Sasha Fierce”. The course also seeks to help students thing more critically about media consumption.
“It’s important to shift students away from simply being consumers of media toward thinking more critically about what they’re engaging on a regular basis. When students don’t respond to theory or dense readings, it’s often easier to see things play out in the world around them” Rutgers doctoral student and lecturer Kevin Allred said:
“She certainly pushes boundaries. While other artists are simple releasing music, she’s creating a grand narrative around her life, her career, and her persona” he added.
Allred will only assign readings by black feminist writers such as Bell Hooks, Alice Walker and Sojourner Truth.
He explains: “Their work resonated with me in ways that other content hadn’t. I found myself identifying with their writing because racism, sexism, homophobia, and privilege are larger systems under which we all operate”.
What do you think of the class? Let us know in the comments below!
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