On Wednesday, students at Rutgers University took their Beyoncé obsession into the classroom, and are earning college credit thanks to a new summer course titled, Feminist Perspectives: Politicizing Beyoncé, in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies.
Spearheaded by doctoral student Kevin Allred, the class focuses on how 'Yonce used her star status and female-empowerment lyricism to illustrate and challenge issues on gender and sexuality, the New York Daily News reports.
While Allred told the newspaper that he is a Beyoncé fan, his class won't be just a superficial look at the singer's career as he plans to offset discussions about Mrs. Carter with black-feminist readings from Octavia Butler and bell hooks.
"I want my students to become more conscious of pop culture and what they're consuming every day," Allred says. "I hope people begin to appreciate what Beyoncé is doing in terms of feminism and what she represents for race and gender."
Read more at the New York Daily News.