Who runs the (academic) world? Yale rolls out new class focused on Beyoncé’s cultural impact

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Yale University is launching a new class focused entirely on Beyoncé’s influence. For their upcoming spring semester, Yale added the “Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics Through Music” course in which the icon’s work will be analyzed and interpreted as it relates to Black history. Yale University invites students to take a new class focused entirely on Beyoncé’s cultural impact “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,” Brooks continued. “There’s just no one like her.” Having previously taught a “Black Women in Popular Music Culture” course at Princeton University, Brooks thought it best to create a more focused rendition at Yale where she focused primarily on Beyoncé rather than trying to fit the impact of multiple artists into one semester.