Harry Styles university course set to launch at Texas university

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A university in Texas is offering a course on the works of pop culture icon Harry Styles.

Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity: Identity, the Internet, and European Pop Culture is coming to Texas State University Honours College in spring 2023.

It will look at the One Direction star, actor, and solo artist’s music and acting career in a bid to “understand the cultural and political development of the modern celebrity” relating to “questions of gender and sexuality, race, class, nation and globalism, media, fashion, fan culture, internet culture, and consumerism.”

A description read: “This course focuses on British musician Harry Styles and popular European culture to understand the cultural and political development of the modern celebrity as related to questions of gender and sexuality, race, class, nation and globalism, media, fashion, fan culture, internet culture, and consumerism.”

Associate professor

The 28-year-old star – whose movie credits include Dunkirk, Don’t Worry Darling and My Policeman – wouldn’t be the first celebrity to inspire a university course.

Earlier this year, a Taylor Swift course launched at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute.

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Journalist Brittany Spanos kicked off her programme in January that seeks to “to deconstruct both the appeal and aversions to Taylor Swift through close readings of her music and public discourse as it relates to her own growth as an artist and a celebrity. Through readings, lectures and more, the class delves into analyses of the culture and politics of teen girlhood in pop music, fandom, media studies, whiteness and power as it relates to her image and the images of those who have both preceded and succeeded her. We’ll also consider topics like copyright and ownership, American nationalism and the ongoing impact of social media on the pop music industry.”

Brittany – who works at music magazine Rolling Stone – labelled herself as a “super fan” of Taylor.

She added: “Teaching a course at Clive Davis has been a dream of mine since I attended NYU. I took several of the Topics in Recorded Music courses in the program while an undergrad and they were foundational to my work as a music journalist. I’ve been covering Taylor Swift since I began my writing career a decade ago and have been a super fan of hers for even longer. It’s such an honour to be able to share my Swiftie expertise with a sharp group of students.”

Courses on Beyoncé, The Beatles and Lady Gaga have also come to universities.