When MTV broke the news that educator Michael Eric Dyson, who teaches at Georgetown University, was offering a 3-credit course called “Sociology of Hip-Hop: Jay-Z” this semester, the Interwebz went wild. But really, isn't it about time? After all, Lady Gaga has been a subject at the University of Virginia's Graduate Arts & Sciences (for a class called “GaGa for Gaga: Sex, Gender, and Identity”). She's also been a subject at the University of South Carolina, which offered a course on the pop star called “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame.“
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I always find it funny when universities try to legitimize/validate hip-hop as an art form,
but Dyson apparently still feels there's a huge lack of acceptance of the genre in higher education. “It's important for young people to see that the rhetorical
invention of African American culture needs to be taken seriously with
one of its greatest artist,” he says–and there's a really high level of interest in the course, with 140 people signed up for it.
MTV says the course covers Jay-Z's book “Decoded,” Adam Bradley's “Book of
Rhymes,” Zack O'Malley Greenburg's “Empire State of Mind,” as well as
other articles and films about hip-hop in general. “
