UNIVERSITY OFFERS A COURSE TITLED 'BEYONCE FEMINISM, RIHANNA WOMANISM'

The University of Texas at Austin's spring semester in 2015 will offer a class titled "Beyoncé Feminism, Rihanna Womanism."

According to the university's website, the Beyoncé/Rihanna course will not be full of "Umbrella" sing-alongs and lessons about how to do the "Single Ladies" dance, but instead the class will focus on the pop stars' roles in feminism and black American culture.

According to the course description, students will be studying how the lyrics, music videos, and actions of these women express various aspects of black feminism such as violence, economic opportunity, sexuality, standards of beauty, and creative self-expression.

"Beyoncé Feminsm, Rihanna Womanism" will then, likely, look into things such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's guest intro on Bey's "***Flawless" and Rihanna's always controversial relationship with Chris Brown.


Below is the class description:

By comparison, this class has a very eye-catching title. Whether or not you are a Beyoncé Bey (what?!) or part of the Rihanna Navy, it will cause you to do a double take while scrolling through electives. The one downside, students may not realize the type of academic inquiry or material that will be covered in the course.

Students in this class will learn that there is far more than catchy melodies to Beyoncé’s and Rihanna’s music. They will not be simply listening to Beyoncé and Rihanna for fun or even comparing the roles of Beyoncé and Rihanna in popular culture, rather, students will be studying how the lyrics, music videos, and actions of these women express various aspects of black feminism such as violence, economic opportunity, sexuality, standards of beauty, and creative self-expression. The instructor hopes for students to understand the role black feminism plays in popular culture as well as everyday life.

For any student interested in women’s and gender studies or how popular culture reflects social studies, this is a class that will make them fall crazy in love.


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