She’s conquered music, makes a fashion statement, has influenced politics… now she’s a course subject at the University of South Carolina. I’m talking about Lady Gaga. Starting this spring the University will offer a course titled “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame”.
Longtime sociology professor – Mathiew Deflem – will be teaching the course. Normally his focus is on criminology, policing, and the sociology of law. But the professor admits that he is a huge fan of Lady Gaga. To his knowledge this is the only course of it’s kind in the country.
The “Lady Gaga course” will focus on examining exactly how the Grammy winner managed to become so famous so quickly. Like her or not there is no denying that she’s made an impact. Right now the star has more than ten million Facebook fans, six million Twitter followers, and is, yet again, the year’s most popular Halloween costumes. So how did she do it?
Deflem defends the course. “We’re going to look at Lady Gaga as a social event. So it’s not the person, and it’s not the music. It’s more this thing out there in society that has ten million followers on Facebook and six million on Twitter. I mean, that’s a social phenomenon. It’s a global social phenomenon. So the central question of the course is, this fame, which is ironically also the theme of her first records, how can it be accounted for? What are some of the mechanisms and some of the conditions of Lady Gaga’s rise to popularity? What does it mean, and how does a person become famous?”
The beginning of the course will deal with the sociology of popularity in general. Lady Gaga will be used as a real life example. Deflem doesn’t believe it is going to be a terribly difficult course, but it will be demanding in terms of workload. It will encompass multiple readings about music, pop culture, sex and gender, and many other topics.
More specific information about the course can be found at GaGaCourse.net – a website Deflem created for the class.
What do you think of the addition to the University of South Carolina’s curriculum? Is Lady Gaga just a fluff course with no value? Would you be interested in taking the course? Share your thoughts with us.
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