Beyoncé has been a blueprint for generations of new music acts. From the “Break My Soul” singer’s days as a member of Destiny’s Child to her expansive business portfolio, Bey is a vessel of knowledge.
For the Spring 2025 semester, Yale University students will dive deep into Beyoncé’s impact as part of a special course led by professor Daphne Brooks.
In a sit-down with Yale’s Daily News, Professor Brooks discussed the upcoming class titled, “Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics through Music.”
“[This class] seemed good to teach because [Beyoncé] is just so ripe for teaching at this moment in time,” she said. “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.”
According to Brooks’ the forthcoming class differs from her previous offering at Princeton University as it will “examine Beyoncé’s artistic work from 2013 to 2024 as a lens to study Black history, intellectual thought and performance,” rather than Beyoncé’s cultural impact.
From Beyoncé’s experimentation in music and venture into fashion to the multiple Grammy Award winner’s approach to visual media across her 2013 self-titled album up to Cowboy Carter.
The course is only being offered to Yale students. But that hasn’t stopped the Beyhive from trying to find a loophole to enroll.