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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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Combine the Beyoncé elective with a photography class and you will have a Kodak Moment or should it be called Kodak Movement?


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Is this the only way Beyonce can have class?? I can do this class in thirty seconds. Singer makes good ,marries a thug,entertains the white house and turns militant at Super bowl .End of story, class dismissed!


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Gosh, we were upset when our CP student told us they’d registered for a bowling class (low registration priority).

Now that bowling class doesn’t seem so bad after all.


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As a Poly graduate, this is embarrassing. With courses like this and majors such as Lesbian Line Dancing, it is not too hard to understand why the Cupcake Generation spends their post college years on their folks basement trying to determine ways to get the rest of us to pay off their student loans.


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Lesbian Line Dancing. I haven’t heard of that one. Now I’m beginning to understand why all of the costs of a higher education is on the rise. Pretty simple in that most of the facilities are being used for trash. And the then we have to employ “the best and brightest” to BS us.

What in the world will these geniuses think of next?


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Sorry Assistant professor Jenell Navarro, but Beyonce is no Jesus.


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“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.”

Attempting to compare Jesus to Beyonce is not a case of “academic freedom”, it’s academic stupidity.


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Actually, if they wanted a class on an influential person, they should devote a class to those like Hitler, Jim Jones, and in contrast Ghandi, Mother Teresa. HOW did these people teach and convince others to follow them and their philosophies?


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Sounds interesting. Will the syllabus cover why black women’s badonkadonks are superior for twerking as compared to the bony assed PWI undergrads?


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lol


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


Really? This crap is from a formerly esteemed institution of higher learning? Are you trying to make Cal Poly a joke? I’m just astounded at the stupidity.


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An “altar”? This truly is messed up!


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What the?


How do you have an entire class on one pop star? How is this college?


What a joke.


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People listen to Jazz, Classical, Pop rock, all of which have classes. Stop being so opinionated Sir. Its called freedom, like it or leave it friend. Because you don’t like something and want it gone, we wouldn’t be living in a country where freedom of choice matters!! Dictators think like that.


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Some of us expect more from Cal Poly…


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Uh, excuse me but, if they are using OUR tax dollars then they shouldn’t be allowed to do whatever the hell they want.


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“where freedom of choice matters!!”. Yes, pursue all this info to your hearts content!!! Just do not receive any college credits for that pursuit. This is an institution of “higher learning”-please define where the “higher” is in this case!


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Comparing a class focused on one artist vs that of an entire genre is ridiculous.


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