In the spring semester of 2025, Beyoncé fans at Yale University will have the opportunity to enroll in a course on the singer called “Beyoncé Makes History.”
According to the Yale Daily News, the course, which will be taught by Professor of African American Studies and Music Daphne Brooks, “will examine Beyoncé’s artistic work from 2013 to 2024 as a lens to study Black history, intellectual thought, and performance.”
The subject is a derivative of “Black Women in Popular Music Culture,” a course that Brooks taught at Princeton University.
She remarked, “Those classes were always overenrolled.” Even though the class began in the late 19th century and continues into the present, there was a lot of enthusiasm over the Beyoncé theme. I always believed that at some point I should return to concentrating on her and making her work the focal point of my pedagogical efforts.
The course explores Beyoncé’s music, fashion and visual media from her 2013 self-titled album to 2024’s Cowboy Carter, while examining the diverse experiences of Black women in media and politics. Students will discuss scholarly readings, participate in visual album screenings, work with archives at the Beinecke Library, engage in public humanities projects and create playlists linking Beyoncé’s music to her influences.
Brooks added: “[This class] seemed good to teach because [Beyoncé] is just so ripe for teaching at this moment in time. 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.”
“[Beyoncé] is just so ripe for teaching at this moment in time, so [this class] seemed good to teach,” Brooks continued. There is simply no one like her in terms of the quantity of innovations and breakthroughs she has carried out, the way she has woven history, politics, and extremely detailed interactions with Black cultural life into her performance aesthetics, and the way she uses her voice as a conduit to reflect on these topics.
In other news, Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, and André 3000 are among the numerous celebrities nominated for prizes at the 2025 Grammy Awards, which have been announced.
On Friday, November 8, the Recording Academy announced the much-awaited nominations for the 67th annual awards ceremony, which will be held on February 2 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
The content from Beyoncé’s chart-topping Cowboy Carter album, which is nominated in 11 categories across many genres, puts her ahead of all other musicians. Bey broke a tie with her husband, JAY-Z, to become the most nominated artist with 99, and the most decorated artist in Grammy history with 32 wins.
Check out the full 2025 Grammy Awards nominations here.
