HARRY STYLES AS COLLEGE SUBJECT: FUN HISTORY CLASS
‘I’ve always wanted to teach a history class that is fun but also covers a period that students have lived through and relate to,’ said Texas State professor Louie Dean Valencia.
Harry Styles is now a college subject. Texas State University has announced it will offer a course based on the work of the pop star and cultural symbol.
The course — Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity: Identity, the Internet, and European Pop Culture — will focus on the artist’s work in music and film, in order to “understand the cultural and political development of the modern celebrity as related to questions of gender and sexuality, race, class, nation and globalism, media, fashion, fan culture, and consumerism.”
Texas State digital history associate professor Louie Dean Valencia, who will be teaching the course, tweeted the news recently.
“It’s official, official. I’m teaching the world’s firstever university course on the work of #HarryStyles…
happening Spring 2023 at @TXST
University,” he wrote. “This is what tenure looks like. Let’s gooooo!”
The curriculum includes Styles’ work with One Direction and on his solo albums (Harry Styles, Fine Line, and Harry’s House), as well as in the films Dunkirk, Eternals, and the upcoming Don’t Worry Darling and My Policeman.
“I’ve always wanted to teach a history class that is fun but also covers a period that students have lived through and relate to,” Valencia told NBC New York. “By studying the art, activism, consumerism and fandom around Harry Styles, I think we’ll be able to get to some very relevant contemporary issues. I think it’s so important for young people to see what is important to them reflected in their curriculum.” Registration starts in autumn. Honor students are entitled to early registration. Earlier this year, a course on Taylor Swift debuted at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute. Other schools have also recently introduced courses on Lady Gaga, Beyonce and The Beatles.