'Beyoncé Makes History': Yale to launch a course on the music icon's cultural impact, starting spring 2025

Beyoncé course at Yale : In a move celebrating both cultural and academic innovation, Yale University is set to launch a course titled ' Beyoncé Makes History : Black Radical Tradition , History, Culture, Theory & Politics through Music' starting in the spring semester of 2025.

Led by African American Studies and Music professor Daphne Brooks, this class will use Beyoncé's groundbreaking body of work from 2013 to 2024 as a lens to explore themes in Black history, intellectual thought, and performance. With a course as bold and genre-defining as the artist it studies, Beyoncé Makes History

is drawing significant interest from students eager to engage with the pop icon's profound cultural impact.

Class in session: Beyoncé's work as a window to history and theory
Daphne Brooks, a prominent scholar in African American Studies, is no stranger to teaching on Black women's contributions to music. Her latest offering at Yale grows from her previous course at Princeton, "Black Women in Popular Music Culture," where Beyoncé's influence was a highly popular topic among students. Daphne Brooks shared that the energy and interest around Beyoncé's work were unmistakable: "Those classes were always overenrolled… I always thought I should come back to focusing on her and centering her work pedagogically at some point." Now at Yale, Brooks' new course dives deeply into Beyoncé's artistry, examining how the singer's career speaks to issues within Black radical traditions, from political activism to evolving cultural identities.

Why Beyoncé, and why now?
Brooks believes that Beyoncé's recent projects, like her self-titled album in 2013 and the 2024 release Cowboy Carter, highlight the artist's transformation from pop star to cultural visionary, blending activism and art in ways unprecedented in popular music. Brooks emphasized that Beyoncé's trajectory, especially in the wake of the 2024 election, exemplifies "unprecedented contributions to American culture, popular culture and global culture" reported Yale Daily News. This academic focus is timely: Beyoncé's body of work serves as a powerful bridge to understand cultural narratives and the experience of Black women within media, music, and broader socio-political contexts.

Beyoncé breaks academic ground: What students will study?
The curriculum takes students on a journey through Beyoncé's sonic and visual artistry, focusing on albums like Lemonade, Renaissance, and Cowboy Carter. Brooks aims to spotlight Beyoncé's shift from typical pop to more radical forms, exploring her art as a fusion of Black feminism, activism, and cultural memory. Students will analyze Beyoncé's visual albums, study influential readings by scholars such as Hortense Spillers and Cedric Robinson, and participate in hands-on projects that connect Beyoncé's music with larger public humanities efforts. As part of this engagement, Brooks will also incorporate archived materials from Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, giving students access to resources that provide a tangible connection to Black cultural history.

A course for all: Who can enroll?
"Beyoncé Makes History" is cross-listed between several departments form African American Studies, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, American Studies, to Music, making it accessible to a wide range of students at Yale. Brooks hopes this interdisciplinary format will attract students from across disciplines and foster what she described as "broad community building." She envisions the course inviting students from all academic backgrounds to reflect on how culture serves as a space of resistance and refuge for marginalized communities. One student, Gemard Guery '28, expressed his excitement about the course, talking to Yale Daily News that its unique focus on Beyoncé's legacy stands out among other art and history courses at Yale.

Beyond the pop star: Beyoncé's cultural legacy
Central to Brooks' course is the notion that Beyoncé's art has reshaped cultural and political landscapes by challenging norms around race, gender, and genre. Students will discuss how Beyoncé has deconstructed musical boundaries, especially with works like Cowboy Carter, which ventures into the traditionally white-dominated genre of country music.

Brooks highlights the lack of institutional recognition for Black female artists, noting that Beyoncé's Grammy losses underscore a broader marginalization of Black women's contributions to music. In the interview with Yale Daily News, Brooks commented on the tendency of awards institutions to overlook Black women's achievements: "Black women are sometimes completely marginalized from some of the highest accolades and are so rarely taken seriously as musicians who are capable of and worthy of recognition for serious monumental work."

Beyoncé's lasting impact on academia and beyond: Why the class matters today
For Brooks, Beyoncé's music offers not just entertainment but a powerful framework for exploring Black culture, resilience, and vision for the future. Her goal is for students to leave the class with a deeper understanding of how Black women like Beyoncé have used art to elevate conversations around social justice and freedom. As Brooks stated, "By looking at culture through Beyoncé, it can invite us to think about…art can articulate the world we live in and nourish our spirits and give us the space to imagine better worlds and the ethics of freedom."