A college in upstate New York is offering a summer sociology course about Miley Cyrus.
Skidmore College, a liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, NY, is offering a summer course called “The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender and Media.” The sociology Cyrus course will explore how the star rebranded herself, sexualized her image compared to her Disney days, and even discuss how transient wealth and fame can be for a young pop star. The course is worth three credits and will be taught by Professor Carolyn Chernoff.
The idea of developing the summer course, “SO-251 The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender and Media”, came from a discussion in Chernoff’s Youth Culture course. Chernoff showed her students a video of Cyrus’ twerking at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards in her Youth Culture course and it sparked a lecture among her students. She realized studying the sociological side of Miley Cyrus would be a great summer course.
Skidmore is not the first college to develop a course that simply focuses on a celebrity and its influence in media and culture. Rutgers University offers a course on Beyonce, which compares the singer’s lyrics to the black feminist movement and explores her control over her image, Georgetown University offers a course on Jay-Z and Rutgers also offers a theology course which explores Bruce Springsteen’s work.
Here is the course description for the Miley Cyrus course being offered at Skidmore College:
“The current media frenzy focused on Miley Cyrus (her public image, her music, and more) highlights the ways in which intersectional identities are shaped by pop culture and mass media.In this special topics course, we will examine core issues of intersectionality theory, looking at the interplay among race, class, and gender, as well as taking a feminist critique of media and sociology of media approach to the Miley “problem.”
