The University of Texas at San Antonio now officially offers a class all about Beyoncé’s Lemonade.
Titled “Black Women, Beyoncé, and Popular Culture,” the course will explore how Bey’s visual album is a “meditation on contemporary black womanhood” — then use that as a starting point to delve deep into the “theoretical, historical, and literary frameworks of black feminism.”
Developed and taught by Professor Kinitra Brooks, the class will be held three times a week, and has been divided into themes based on the arc of the album, starting with “Formation” and ending with “All Night.” Additional reading for the course will include the work of Patricia Hill Collins, Toni Morrison, and Warsan Shire, whose poetry was featured prominently on Lemonade.
But in case you might think that a course focused on Beyoncé and her music would be all fun and games, you better think again. In her syllabus, Brooks makes it very clear that the course will be anything but easy.
“Studying race, gender, class, and pop culture theory is incredibly fun…and incredibly hard,” she wrote. “There is no shame in deciding you are not ready.”
“You do not have to be a member of the Beyhive,” she continued. “I simply ask that you are willing to be uncomfortable — to have your thoughts and ideas challenged — and then to work/read/write your way through that un-comfortability in order to become a stronger critical thinker.”
Credit: cosmopolitan
