Beyond smashing her own records, Beyoncé is also having a significant impact on education. Yale has revealed that it will be offering a course called “Beyonce Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics Through Music,” which will utilize her work as a window to analyze Black activism and intellectual thought.
As they follow Beyoncé’s innovations and impact from her 2013 self-titled album to her most recent, “Cowboy Carter,” students will examine her albums, concert videos, and performance politics.
The course will be introduced during the forthcoming spring semester at the internationally renowned university.
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The course will be taught by writer and Black studies expert Daphne Brooks, who co-founded Yale’s Black Sound & the Archive Working Group, a group of students and teachers dedicated to “exploring the untapped variety of black sound archives,” according to NBC News4.
Brooks told the Yale Daily News that “[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.”
NBC reported that since the early 2010s, universities such as Rutgers University, Cornell University, the University of Texas at San Antonio, California Polytechnic State University, and Arizona State University have been offering courses on the Grammy winner’s political and cultural impact.
Just a few days ago, the 43-year-old singer became the most nominated artist in Grammy history. She leads the 2025 Grammy nods with 11, increasing her career total to 99, per the Associated Press.
