Miley Cyrus & Beyonce classes coming to colleges in the U.S.

Skidmore College, a NY liberal arts college, is now offering a course on Miley Cyrus focusing on her role in pop culture in a way to study gender, race, class, fame, and power.

The course will be titled, "The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender and Media," according to The Clinton Herald. 

The International Business Times stated the course will, "cover a wide array of topics, including the rise of Disney Princess; transition to adulthood; allies and appropriation; uses of culture across race, class, and gender; and bisexuality, queerness, and the female body. The course will also tackle topics on what happens to Disney stars as they age, including gender stratification and the hyper-commodification of childhood". 

The Cyrus course will be taught by Skidmore's assistant professor of Sociology Carolyn Chernoff.  In an interview with Today.com, Chernoff said the course will provide, "a better understanding of the way we see social problems play out through mass media, the way even trivial things, like entertainment, reflect larger cultural conflict on race, class and social inequality." 

This is not the first university to cash in on the popularity of pop culture in the classroom.  New Jersey's Rutgers University made headslines for its announcement to offer a Beyonce focused course in the same respect as the Miley course.  "Politicizing Beyonce," will "use the performer's music and career as lenses to explore race, gender and sexual politics in modern America, with 'texts' ranging from Beyoncé's music videos and lyrics to Alice Walker and Sojourner Truth," according to Time.

Rutgers University has offered the Beyonce course through its Gender and Woman Studies Department as a part of the Summer Session.  Kevin Allred, a doctoral student and lecturer in the department, said, "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."