OORO: From Instagram To School: The Benefits of Celebrity Studies in Education

In June 2014, Rutgers University, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in America, affirmed that celebrity culture is a serious subject for serious study – by taking its first intake of students studying Feminist Perspectives: Politicising Beyoncé, as part of its Women and Gender studies course.

As part of the Politicising Beyoncé course, students learn about American race, gender and sexual politics. The class will include an analysis of Beyoncé's videos and lyrics as well as readings from black feminists. According to Kevin Allred, the lecturer at Rutgers running the course, "When students don't respond to theory or dense readings, it's often easier to see things play out in the world around them."

The same year, Skidmore College, a liberal arts institution in New York State, opened its doors for a summer course on the Sociology of Miley Cyrus.

Still, in 2014, James Bennett, a leading professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, said that students can learn about politics, morality and the economy from celebrity culture. “From Angelina Jolie's breast cancer surgery to Madonna adopting children from Malawi, celebrities are constantly used to tell stories that spark important conversations and debates about moral, political, economic and cultural issues,” he said.

Similarly, the Sociology of Miley Cyrus classes aim to use the controversial American pop star as a gateway to discuss core sociological theory. Carolyn Chernoff, who wrote the syllabus, said "Miley Cyrus is a rich example of how race, class and gender are performed in the media. She's a great case study.

Beyoncé performs onstage on June 27, 2023 in Warsaw, Poland. /GETTY IMAGES

Jonathan Baldwin, a director of teaching and learning in Cambridge, previously ran a course based on the Simpsons at the University of Brighton. He pointed out that Dickens and Shakespeare were also celebrities. "Using current figures as a way to unpick our current way of life is entirely appropriate," he says. "How else would you do it?"

Fast forward to November 2024, Yale University, another private Ivy League research university in the US, recently announced a new course that dives into the profound influence of songstress Beyoncé on contemporary society. 

Daphne Brooks, professor of African American Studies and music, will teach the new class titled Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics through Music.

In the class, students will examine Beyoncé’s artistic work from 2013 to 2024 as a lens to study Black history, intellectual thought and performance. The course is a byproduct of Brooks’ previous class at Princeton University titled Black Women in Popular Music Culture.

While at Princeton, Brooks served as a faculty member in the English and African American Studies Departments. Much of the content in her Yale course draws from the section in her Princeton course which focused on Beyoncé’s cultural impact. 

According to Brooks, those classes were always overenrolled “and there was so much energy around the focus on Beyoncé, even though it was a class that starts in the late 19th century and moves through the present day. I always thought I should come back to focusing on her and centring her work pedagogically at some point.” 

Brooks believes that following the 2024 election and the events preceding it, it’s important to recognize Beyoncé’s unprecedented contributions to American culture, popular culture and global culture for the past two decades.

The course primarily centres around Beyoncé’s sonic, fashion and visual media following her 2013 self-titled album through 2024’s Cowboy Carter. It also delves into the multifarious Black female experience in media and politics. 

Students will participate in discussions surrounding readings from scholars such as Hortense Spillers, the Combahee River Collective, Cedric Robinson and Karl Hagstrom Miller. 

In terms of projects, students will participate in screenings of her visual albums, work with archives in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and engage with public humanities projects designed to study Beyoncé’s physical impact on the Black community. Students will also be encouraged to create playlists connecting Beyoncé’s music to those of her influences.

When asked why the class centres around Beyoncé’s musical catalogue such as her most recent albums: Lemonade, Renaissance and Cowboy Carter as opposed to her earlier bodies of work such as Dangerously in Love and B’Day, Brooks said it’s because she wanted to highlight Beyoncé’s break from certain dimensions of a “typical pop repertoire.”

"2013 was such a watershed moment in which she articulated her beliefs in Black feminism,” Brooks said. In the song Flawless, it was the first time a pop artist like Beyonce had used sound bites from a Black feminist like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It became more about ‘We are going to produce club bangers that are also galvanizing our ability to think radically about the state of liberation.”

Brooks said that the study of Beyoncé will work as scaffolding for engaging contributions of other performers such as Harlem Renaissance entertainer Josephine Baker, acclaimed singer Diana Ross, Black sexual revolutionary Betty Davis and queer icon Grace Jones.

The course is cross-listed between the Department of African American Studies, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, American Studies and Music. Brooks says that such interdisciplinary engagement will help students at Yale think about American history and the way culture acts as a site of refuge for marginalized and minoritized groups.

Other courses that have used celebrities as case studies include a course in Jay-Z and Kanye West at the University of Missouri, which looks at the rappers in relation to poets and the American dream, and a course in the sociology of Lady Gaga in South Carolina.

In the UK, one can enrol for a master's degree that focuses on the Beatles, at Liverpool Hope University, and analyze the significance of the music of the Beatles in the construction of identities, audiences, ethnicities and localities.

However, not everyone will be convinced that university courses focused on celebrities are worth signing up for. One may ask "Why Beyoncé? Why not someone iconic in the suffragette movement who's been influential in gender movements?

Yale University Art Gallery. /YALE UNIVERSITY

Are university courses that focus on pop stars a fresh way to dissect broader topics, or are they just a savvy marketing move? Critics have labelled such moves as a symptom of a competitive commercialized education market. They argue that nowadays, colleges and universities treat students like customers.

Mainstream learning institutions want to ensure their product has the most appealing packaging, including modules with cool names. They are taking the "easy way out" by using celebrities to attract students. That they do it to seem more current and to create a buzz. Perhaps mentioning celebrities as examples in topics is better suited than creating an entire course module on them.

Focusing on current pop stars doesn't have to lead to the neglect of other important figures. It's important to keep things current as it's more relatable. This doesn't mean the neglect of people from the past, but rather the amalgamation of those from the past and those of today.

Dismissal of courses like this as 'useless' depicts sheer arrogance and no understanding of what courses are useful in the first place. We’re in the 21st century and not everyone fancies engineering, law, architecture, agriculture or medicine. Regardless of the intellectual value that celebrity studies entail, rigid conservative conventionality will discriminate constantly, and at the end of the day, it's how you look on paper.

If it sees an academic case study on  Simba and Les Wanyika; Them Mushrooms; Les Mangelepa; Nyashinski; AliKiba; Diamond Platnumz; Lady Jaydee; Eric Wainaina; Suzanna Owiyo; Rose Muhando; SautiSol; Christina Shusho or Wahu and Nameless, it won't think about the depth and issues that have gone into the course, it will just think 'next please'.

Celebrity culture is a serious subject for serious study. Let’s think beyond the glitz and glamour and tap into the intellectual value of celebrity studies. It can foster critical thinking and empower the next generation.

Ooro George is a Kenyan journalist, art critic, digital stories, and cross-cultural curator. You can reach him via LinkedIn here, through email: oorojoj@gmail.com and on X @OoroGeorge