Stars with Their Own College Courses
On Sept. 20, NYU's Clive Davis Institute announced via Variety that "Topics in Recorded Music: Lana Del Rey," which will be taught by journalist and author Kathy Iandoli, will run as a two-credit course from Oct. 20 to Dec. 8.
The course is set to feature a curriculum focused on "Del Rey's contributions to 21st Century pop stardom, her relationship to feminism, her musical influences and artists she has influenced, and her connection to social justice movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo and #TimesUp," according to Variety, which cited an NYU representative.
On Aug. 23, the University of Texas at Austin announced the newest addition to the curriculum: "The Taylor Swift Songbook," an English course for the fall 2022 semester.
The class, which will be taught to undergraduates in the Liberal Arts Honors program, will be led by English Professor Elizabeth Scala.
"Students in the course will study Swift's songs alongside the traditional canon of Western literature: Shakespeare, Keats, and Frost," Professor Scala detailed in the announcement. "They'll be asked to analyze and contextualize common practices and problems across the centuries."
Previously, New York University's Clive Davis Institute launched a brand new course on Taylor Swift for its spring 2022 semester, Variety reported.
"This course proposes to deconstruct both the appeal and aversions to Taylor Swift through close readings of her music and public discourse as it relates to her own growth as an artist and a celebrity," the course description read, in part, according to the outlet.
Taught by Rolling Stone's Brittany Spanos, the new class delves into Swift's "music and public discourse as it relates to her own growth as an artist and a celebrity," a rep for the program told Variety.
In July 2022, Texas State University announced a new class for spring 2023, focused on Styles, identity and pop culture.
"I've always wanted to teach a history class that is both fun, but also covers a period that students have lived through and relate to," said associate professor of digital history, Dr. Louie Dean Valencia, per the local NBC affiliate. "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."
"While other artists are simply releasing music, she's creating a grand narrative around her life, her career and her persona," Kevin Allred, a lecturer Rutgers, told Today of the offering in 2014. Again we ask, "Who run the world?"
Just like his wife, JAY-Z had a course named after him at Georgetown University. The rapper's book Decoded was required reading, according to the Daily News. And there were exams on "JAY-Z-ology." Seriously.
She's just being Miley – and academics want to talk about that. The singer inspired a class at Skidmore College and Professor Carolyn Chernoff told ABC News that Cyrus is such an interesting subject because she "complicates representations of the female body in pop culture in some ways that are good, bad and ugly."
Leave it to a college in The Boss's home state of New Jersey to offer a seminar focused on the singer's lyrics and how they convey "the possibility of redemption by earthly means (women, cars, music)" at Rutgers University. Deep. But you know half the students signed up because they hoped Springsteen popped in as a guest lecturer.
The course booklet at New York University explained, "Though sometimes not treated with the seriousness he deserves, Combs has had a profound effect on global culture of the last 20 years." It seems that the class focused mostly on his reign in the '90s and the only problem with that? No study of Making the Band, which began in 2000. For shame, NYU, for shame.
Calling all Little Monsters. Back in 2010, the University of South Carolina launched a class in which "the central objective is to unravel some of the sociologically relevant dimensions of the fame of Lady Gaga," according to a story in the New York Times. Wonder if the professor entered the classroom every day in an egg carried by four people?
He has an album called The College Dropout, but if West ever decides to re-enroll, he can study himself. In 2015 it was announced that Georgia State University was offering a course subtitled, according to TheFader.com.
The music icon had the distinct honor of being the one celeb on this list whose course was taught at an MBA level (at Clark Atlanta University). The curriculum included "how he negotiated and his tours, record deals, merchandising, to how he revolutionized legal practices related to entertainment copyrights, trademarks, licenses and more" and was taught by an entertainment lawyer.
Because the actor/artist/author/director/selfie-er apparently didn't have enough on his plate, Franco joined forces with Columbia College Hollywood to create a class taught by his editor, Tyler Danna. The actor even Skyped in regularly.
Stars with Their Own College Courses
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