Singing star to be subject of studies

Beyoncé is arguably one of the wealthiest and most famous women on the planet, but is she deserving of her own university-level course? Kevin Aldred, a PHD candidate and lecturer in the Women’s and Gender Studies program at Rutgers University thinks so.

The university in New Jersey recently announced on their website that “Politicizing Beyoncé” will be added to the university’s academic calendar in the upcoming year.

“When you have a course that focuses on a popular figure that has raised all kinds of discussion and issues around racial difference, discrimination, sexuality, and race, popular music creates a cultural context in which people want to talk about these things,” said Carrie Rentschler, director of the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Mcgill. “It sounds like a course I’d like to take!”

Rentschler, who teaches a class called “Feminist Media Studies”– in which the R&B star is a key example of how a pop music icon can impact society’s view of important social issues – wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of a doctoral student or faculty member proposing a limited time, special topics course on Beyoncé.

Adding structure and applying theory to a subject that students are already debating outside of the classroom allows them to view the issues through a “formal analytical lens” and the temporary availability of special topics courses makes them current, trendy, and relevant.

But not everyone is keen on the idea, including Linda Bowes, program secretary and student adviser at Concordia University’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute of Women’s Studies.

“It might be something that would be covered in a pop culture course,” Bowes said, adding that Concordia’s “Pop Culture” course touches on a variety of popular figures and their impact on society –such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer –but she doesn’t believe it could be a course on its own.

“In the States, they’re so starstruck by everybody,”she explained. “Here, there’s more of an obsession with sports, so I don’t think we have a market for it.”

Other courses available at American post-secondary schools include “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame” at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, “Harry Potter: Finding Your Patronus” at Oregon State University, and “Arguing with Judge Judy: Popular ‘Logic’ on TV Judge Shows” at the University of California, Berkeley.