11 Celebs Who Are The Subject of College Courses

07/05/2024 11:33 AM

From "Spanish for Swifties" to "Politicizing Beyoncé," these colleges have it all!

Class is in session and the curriculum is all about Hollywood's biggest stars! Colleges and universities have long offered unique courses and fields of study, and over the past decade, celebrities have become a big part of the syllabus.

Major stars like Taylor Swift and Harry Styles have become the topic of discussion in many classrooms, giving students a new way to look at educational subjects like sociology and literature. There's no doubt that these courses are some of the most popular classes on campus!

Find out which colleges are getting creative with their courses…

1. Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is no stranger to being the subject of college courses. In recent years, colleges like New York University, UC Berkeley, the University of Miami, the University of Delaware and the Berklee College of Music have offered classes about the pop superstar. Stanford University has even taken part with two student-led classes: "All Too Well (Ten Week Version)" and "The Last Great American Songwriter: Storytelling With Taylor Swift Through the Eras."

"The goal is kind of just to look at albums as storybooks and think about what the broader idea, theme, or arc that the author -- or songwriter -- is trying to talk about and how we can study that in a way that you would a novel," student professor Ava Jeffs told BestColleges.

Most recently, Colorado State University announced a summer course called "Spanish for Swifties," exploring Taylor's lyrics and global impact in Spanish speaking countries. Arizona State is also offering a course called "Psychology of Taylor Swift" covering topics in social psychology like the psychology of music, social media, revenge, and romantic relationships.

2. Miley Cyrus

Back in 2014, Skidmore College announced that students could take a course called "The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender and Media." Professor Carolyn Chernoff explained that the course used Miley and her public persona "as a lens through which to explore sociological thinking about identity, entertainment, media and fame."

"Unfortunately, the way we talk about female pop stars and female bodies, class matters, gender matters, sexuality and sexual performance matters, but race matters a lot [too] and the way we talk about white pop stars is quite different than how we talk about the bodies of women of color," she told ABC News. "[Miley] complicates representations of the female body in pop culture in some ways that are good, bad, and ugly."

3. Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey was named the focus of a New York University class in 2022. Taught by journalist and author Kathy Iandoli, "Topics in Recorded Music: Lana Del Rey," covered topics from Lana's pop stardom to "her relationship to feminism, her musical influences and artists she has influenced, and her connection to social justice movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo and #TimesUp."

"In so many ways, I feel like Lana Del Rey is both a blueprint and a cautionary tale, a complicated pop star who resonates so much with her fans, not because of how she makes them feel about her, but rather how she makes them feel about themselves," Kathy told Variety.

She continued, "She has changed the parameters of baroque pop and now more specifically 'sad girl pop' through her music, by expanding the subject matter which at times is controversial and challenging. There are so many pieces in this mosaic that we have now come to know as Lana Del Rey, and this course examines every dimension of it."

4. Harry Styles

During the 2023 spring semester, Texas State University offered a course called "Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity: Identity, the Internet and European Pop Culture." Professor Dr. Louie Dean Valencia said he began researching Harry in 2020, "focusing on his art, the ways masculinity has changed in the last decade, celebrity culture and the internet." As part of a final project, the class created a podcast.

"I've always wanted to teach a history class that is both fun, but also covers a period that students have lived through and relate to," he told NBC DFW. "By studying the art, activism, consumerism and fandom around Harry Styles, I think we'll be able to get to some very relevant contemporary issues. I think it's so important for young people to see what is important to them reflected in their curriculum."

5. Lady Gaga

Back in 2011, the University of South Carolina began offering a sociology course about Lady Gaga called "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of the Fame." Taught by Professor Mathieu Deflem, the course aimed to "engage in sound and substantiated scholarly thinking" on topics related to her fame.

"We're going to look at Lady Gaga as a social event. So it's not the person, and it's not the music. It's more this thing out there in society that has 10 million followers on Facebook and six million on Twitter. I mean, that's a social phenomenon," he told the Daily Gamecock.

6. Kanye West

In 2015, Georgia State University professor Dr. Scott Heath built an entire course around Kanye West. Called "Kanye Versus Everybody: Black Poetry and Poetics from Hughes to Hip-Hop," the course aimed to "investigate the continuous development of African American poetry and poetics -- the uses of language and literature to represent Blackness and Americanness in particular" with consideration of race, class, gender, and sexuality. During the class, students decoded Kanye's work and interviews.

Since then, Concordia University has also offered a class about Kanye, titled "Kanye vs. Ye: Genius by Design," which explored "contemporary issues (race, power, people, nations) self-analysis and/or reflection(s) through Kanye's passion, vision and work."

7. Beyoncé

Beyoncé became the subject of an entire course at Rutgers University in 2014. The class, called "Politicizing Beyoncé," used her music and career as lenses to explore American race, gender, and sexual politics. Professor Kevin Allred was inspired to create the course after teaching Women's Studies 101 and explained that the curriculum explored Beyoncé's control over her career, her alter ego Sasha Fierce and female empowerment in the music industry.

"She certainly pushes boundaries. While other artists are simply releasing music, she's creating a grand narrative around her life, her career and her persona," he shared with the university.

Since then, several other Beyoncé courses have popped up including the University of Copenhagen's "Beyoncé, Gender and Race" course and Arizona State University's "Lemonade: Beyoncé and Black Feminism."

8. Jay-Z

In 2011, Jay-Z became the subject of a course at Georgetown University. "Sociology of Hip Hop: Jay-Z" was taught by author and entertainment personality Michael Eric Dyson and examined the social commentary behind the rapper's lyrics in regards to racial and gender identity, sexuality, capitalism and economic inequality. During the course, students were required to read Jay-Z's memoir, Decoded.

"We wanted to take up a serious investigation of [Jay-Z's] art and craft. Behind the billionaire sexiness of a pop cultural icon," he says, it is worth considering "what the rhetorical and literary fuss is about," Michael told The Nation. "They understand that as a black man, [Jay-Z's] humanity has been questioning from the beginning. Many are white kids -- they bring a level of criticism about the culture they have emerged from because they've seen that culture through Jay-Z's eyes."

9. Bruce Springsteen

At Rutgers University, Bruce Springsteen's career was examined through a course called "Springsteen's American Vision." The class examined how his career defined a generation's "personal growth and political and social change." One of the students' first assignments was to write about a song that changed their lives.

"It forces them to understand something about how they got to this moment in their lives," professor Dr. Louis Masur told Rutgers Today. "It teaches them to think critically about music, songwriting and performance, and it introduces me to their perspective. It opens up a dialogue into the role of music in their lives and in American culture."

Other universities have also followed suit with courses about Bruce including Monmouth University's "Bruce Springsteen's America: Land of Hope and Dreams."

10. Madonna

In 1997, Madonna had one of the first college courses dedicated to the study of a pop star. The University of Amsterdam launched "Madonna the Phenomenon," which examined the musician's music and film ventures as well as her persona as a sex symbol and her media presence. Numerous other colleges have gone on to study the pop icon -- which she says she finds funny.

"I laugh. It's amusing. It's flattering because obviously I'm on a lot of people's minds. But I read about all of these things, and I read what I meant by things, and I just think, all of this comes from my subconscious or my unconscious, I don't even think about it," she told The New York Times. "Everyone's got this obsession about me being really calculating and manipulative, and I think it's just because the stuff that I do pushes so many buttons that people think that I planned it. People think that it didn't just come off in a spontaneous way, but it did, believe me."

11. Quentin Tarantino

Despite the fact that Quentin Tarantino never went to film school, his work is studied at film schools around the country. In 2018, Middlebury College launched a class called "Antiheroes in the Films of Quentin Tarantino: Adaptation, Appropriation, Remix," which explored Quentin's films as well as other pop culture figures. It also looked at how Quentin's works seamlessly blended "American and foreign cultural elements to create powerful anti-establishment characters."