Disappointed to learn it’s not being taught at Watermelon Sugar High
Jedi is a real religion, Game of Thrones‘ Dothraki is a real language and now, apparently, you can take a university course on Harry Styles. It’s just a sign of the times.
That’s right, if you’re interested in charting the success of singer-songwriter and “The Cult of Celebrity” he has garnered since leaving X-Factor’s biggest export, One Direction, then you can apply to this new Harry Styles university course in the US.
Entitled “Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity: Identity, the Internet and European Pop Culture”, the class is being taught at Texas State University by Associate Professor of Digital History Louie Dean Valencia from the spring 2023 term onwards.
It's official, official. I'm teaching the world's first ever university course on the work of #HarryStyles is happening Spring 2023 at @TXST University (see description).
This is what tenure looks like. Let's gooooo! 😊 pic.twitter.com/1z3vMZoxRV
— Louie Dean Valencia (@BurntCitrus) July 16, 2022
In the description of the somewhat unorthodox US college credit, the university programme is marketed as a deep dive into the “cultural and political development of the modern celebrity as relayed to the question of gender and sexuality”, as well as exploring race, social class; fan culture and fashion and how they factor into the digital landscape and consumerism in general.
Valencia is, admittedly, a huge fan of the pop star and increasingly successfully solo artists but more importantly, he believes the 28-year-old’s significance in the entertainment world and wider cultural zeitgeist at present should not be overlooked.
Speaking in an interview with KXAN, Valencia said: “The way I like to describe the class is that it’s really about the history of the last 12 years or so. So, it is about Harry Styles in the same way that some classes are about The Beatles and you might take a class like that to learn about, ‘What were the ‘60s like?’”.
We know it’s in America but be honest, how many of you actually considered enrolling, even for just a split second?
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- Quidditch has now changed its name to distance itself from JK Rowling
