February 20, 2012

By Kayla Viaud / Features Editor

Imagine this: It's the first day of class and you reach into your pocket to pull out your schedule and the classes are Rock 'n' Rolling with the The Fray, Religious Studies with Tenth Avenue North and Politicizing Beyoncé. Two of those are fake course titles.

"If you like it, you shoulda put a ring on it." Who would have thought Beyoncé, the musician behind the 2008 hit song "Single Ladies" would be the topic of so much political attention. Believe it or not, she is. Kevin Allred a graduate student at Rutgers University has created a course, titled "Politicizing Beyoncé."

The class will connect Beyonce's music with writings from female activists.

Palm Beach Atlantic University is not backing away from this pop culture trend. PBA has held a class on the 1960s music group The Beatles and Harry Potter. "Taking an intellectual approach to your everyday life, that's studying pop culture," says Michael O'Connor, assistant professor of music, who taught the Beatles course.

The course focuses on music and sociology and was a mix of popular music majors and other students. "The Beatles is as interesting as Mozart and Beethoven," O' Connor says.

"When we look at culture we look at the activities of human beings at a particular time," says O'Connor.

"I think classes about popular icons are very important in the curriculum because it is important to study what is going on in the world around you, not just figures in the distant past," says music education major Nicole Straussman.

"How can they not be culturally relevant? Current sociological and anthropological studies rely on modern figures to form the very culture we live in," says Straussman.

Pop culture classes offer a different approach in teaching students about the world in which they are living. "With pop culture, you can say 'I can actually study something that I encounter every day,'" O' Connor says.

Pop culture courses that focus on celebrities are not an American concept. In England, at the Liverpool Hope University, students can receive a degree in the Beatles.

"Europe has always been enamored of Pop culture, but I think America has had the greatest influence on their development of it," says Lloyd Mims, dean of School of Music and Fine Arts. "That is becoming more and more true of the Pacific Rim areas now as well."

Students shouldn't think that just because a class is named after a pop star, the class is easy. "These courses are just as challenging," O' Connor says of the Beatles course.

"Culture is not history, although it can embrace history; culture is about humanity's reaction to beauty, excitement, and enlightenment," Mims says. "Culture is how humanity reacts creatively to those issues—in dance, music and visual art."

Georgetown University has a course titled, Sociology of Hip-Hop — Urban Theodicy of Jay-Z stemming from the music of Beyonce's husband.

Critics of pop culture classes believe that celebrities and pop stars are not culturally relevant for discussion in academia. O'Connor says they are "absolutely wrong."

"How can they not be culturally relevant? Current sociological and anthropological studies rely on modern figures to form the very culture we live in," says Straussman.

PBA offers a popular music major. PBA's Popular Music major teaches students to compose songs, jingles and praise choruses.