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Cal Poly to offer entire class on Beyonce

March 7, 2017

Beyonce

Starting in the upcoming spring quarter, Cal Poly, through its ethnic studies department, will offer an entire course on the pop star Beyonce. [Mustang News]

The class will be called Beyonce: Race, Feminism and Politics. The instructor planning the class says the course is particularly relevant because Beyonce is an outspoken critic of police brutality.

Students taking the Beyonce class will follow a curriculum modeled after the pop star’s visual album, “Lemonade.” Each week, the course will cover one of the 12 themes in the album: intuition, denial, anger, apathy, emptiness, loss, accountability, reformation, forgiveness, resurrection, hope and redemption.

The course will conclude with a Beyonce conference called “Cal Poly Bey Day.” The event will consist of a screening of the album Lemonade, coupled with faculty and student presentations and panel discussions on Beyonce’s work. There will also be student performances set to the pop star’s music.

Additionally, the class will construct an altar dedicated to Beyonce and women of color who have been subject to police violence.

Assistant professor Jenell Navarro will teach the inaugural Beyonce course. Navarro is a self-described unapologetic Beyonce fan.

Jenell Navarro

Navarro’s bio states, in 2011, she received a Ph.D. in cultural studies from Claremont Graduate University. Her expertise and published works fall within the fields of indigenous studies and hip-hop studies, according to the Cal Poly website.

The Beyonce class will be an elective, not a required course. But, Navarro said she wants it to become a permanent course that more faculty members will choose to teach in the future.

“Some have questioned if the course is too specific or irrelevant, but we teach a class on Jesus on this campus,” Navarro told Mustang News. “There could be arguments made that that’s too specific or not relevant. It’s called academic freedom.”

Navarro said Cal Poly is a “PWI” — predominantly white institution. Beyonce’s popularity will make it easier for people to have open discussions about race on Cal Poly’s predominantly white campus, Navarro said.

Rutgers University has reportedly offered a Beyonce course for about a dozen years.


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I just don’t understand??? What is WRONG with our Educational system?? Are the institutions that HARD UP for money?? Being a parent of a Cal Poly student and paying tuition, I want my student to GET THROUGH Cal Poly as quickly as they can and get out and get a meaningful job. WHAT the heck would knowing about Beyonce do for them? This is a waste of money – paying a professor and taking up classroom/facility space that could be better spent on USEFUL more PRACTICAL learning experiences. IF a young person is that interested in Beyonce then look her up on the internet on “their own time” don’t make me the taxpayer have to help pay for a stink’in class on her – this is so stupid! I hope that the Department of Education gets overhauled at some point – clean out swamp – and get down to business of actually educating our young people on things that are REALLY useful to them to go to work and be productive in society! I am disgusted with CAL POLY and even though we have three diplomas hanging our our wall from Cal Poly and one in the making I will not make any extra donations to them until they straighten up and get right again.


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Guess they’ll have to change name from the liberal arts to the brain dead arts. This is ridiculous.


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Wow these comments are amazing LOL!


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What’s next, a class on autotune and how to perfect it?


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Ha!


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What was your major? Oh I majored in low talent soon to be C list celebrities.


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Football players need to maintain a C average grade somehow.


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“Cal Poly to offer entire class on Beyonce”


And very hateful, bitter and bigoted people wonder why their are issues in this country. Sexists like Jenell Navarro have no business on campuses like Cal Poly. It’s sad (and rather infuriating) to watch this deterioration and the indoctrination.


An altar for Beyonce?


altar

[awl-ter]


1. an elevated place or structure, as a mound or platform, at which religious rites are performed or on which sacrifices are offered to gods, ancestors, etc.


Either Jenell Navarro has no idea what an “altar” is, or she’s really up to something nefarious.


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