While the infamous “Beyonce professor” in the United States is repeatedly getting booted from his teaching gigs for threatening white people and President Trump, the University of Copenhagen is picking up the slack by offering its own Beyonce-centered course.
According to a translation of TV2, approximately 75 students have signed up to take the new “Beyonce, Gender and Race” course offered by the University of Copenhagen's Department of Arts and Culture. The professor, Erik Steinskog, said the course will focus on analyzing Beyonce’s songs and music videos to learn about “gender, sexuality and race," similar to how people analyze operas and plays.
“One of the goals is to introduce black feminist thought, which is not very well known in Scandinavia,” BBC reports Steinskog said. “Beyonce is important in understanding the world we live in. [She] is one of the biggest pop artists today, which makes her important in an analysis of contemporary times.”
Steinskog told the University of Copenhagen’s magazine, “She’s a controversial feminist, which is crucial. She makes us consider what it means to be a feminist – or what it can mean, but her feminism is addressed to a non-academic audience.”
Steinskog said teaching about Beyonce is important because not only is she a feminist, but she is also a black feminist.
“Black feminism can provide an alternative to white, European feminism, and introduce new ways of thinking about feminism,” he said. “Theory written by black women presents a different point of view and a different frame of reference that can expose us Scandinavians to new ideas.”
As part of the immediate praise of the course, HelloGiggles and Elle pointed out the course will technically be “free” for students in the EU/EEA and in Switzerland. It will also reportedly be “free” for anyone participating in an exchange program.
While women across the internet are praising the Beyonce class, and while college degrees become devalued, it is worth noting that the originator of the American Beyonce course, Kevin Allred, once spoke to CNN to justify the cost of college—despite teaching about Beyonce.
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