University Of Virginia Offers Class On Lady Gaga

Some students at the University of Virginia will be taking on a new figure to study this fall: Lady Gaga.

The Cavalier Daily reports:

In Graduate Arts & Sciences student Christa Romanosky's ongoing ENWR 1510 class, "GaGa for Gaga: Sex, Gender, and Identity," students analyze how the musician pushes social boundaries with her work. For this introductory course to argumentative essay writing, Romanosky chose the Lady Gaga theme to establish an engaging framework for critical analysis.

"We're exploring how identity is challenged by gender and sexuality and how Lady Gaga confronts this challenge," Romanosky said.

This isn't the first time Gaga has been the subject of academic inquiry. Earlier this year, doctoral student Meghan Vicks and writer/performance artist Kate Durbin founded Gaga Stigmata, an online literary and scholarly journal for all things Gaga.

What's the most off-beat class you've taken? Let us know below.

Comments

[Dr. Jeffrey H. Toney]

04:11 PM on 11/05/2010

Seems to be a trend on campuses! See my article posted today on HuffPost College Page!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jeffrey-h-toney/going-gaga_b_776085.html

[MH Buttahz]

03:17 PM on 10/04/2010

Ridiculous! Absolutely Ridiculous!...Lady Gaga's music may be very good..but what is there to learn about her? She's a wacky coo-coo woman who is just aboslutely insane..her wacky sense of fashion and ugh her voice when she's just talking...her voice sounds not as annoying when she sings, but oy when she talks! Gaga's got a messed up view of the world...she's just CRAZY!

[joymora]

03:33 PM on 09/14/2010

So... you still wonder why there is a crisis in education?

[Alex Hull]

10:30 PM on 09/13/2010

Kenyon College taught a seminar on Borat a few years back at the height of his (short-lived) international popularity....

[Anti-Panoptic]

03:21 PM on 09/13/2010

Oh my...

[robjh1]

12:04 PM on 09/13/2010

Interesting. I seem to recall the same was done on Madonna back in the 80's or early 90's. Where did it get those students who took the class?

[topkatnc]

11:15 AM on 09/14/2010

Yeah .. I remember that also ...

[Occam123]

11:33 AM on 09/13/2010

The wages of multi-culti sin.

[bankertobe]

07:17 AM on 09/13/2010

This course should be offered in all

[farmilyman]

06:03 AM on 09/13/2010

So kids are racking up debt to learn about lady gaga? No wonder the US is falling behind.

[RavenWest]

03:13 AM on 09/13/2010

why does it matter if she 'pushes social boundaries' ? It seems like she's just moving fashion and music videos through their cycles faster. No new jobs, no new industry, no insight, just fuel to an existing fire. People aren't changing their behaviors for lady gaga, just reacting.

The same goes for the rest of pop culture, what have we gained? It seems like the only 'advancements' made have been sex related, allowing us to break down barriers and have more sex. Otherwise, nothing.

[EMitts]

12:53 AM on 09/13/2010

This sound great, but does she have enough body of work? A White Stripes, Green Day, Kanye West, Jay-z class could work since they been around longer. Gaga is somewhat limited, but she bleeds sex.

[WoodsideCraig]

12:37 AM on 09/13/2010

A Lady Gaga class? Seems to me that she hasn't been around long enough to be worthy of study. A person is important for their impact on society. With all respect to her as a performer and artist, that impact is close to zero. She's just another celebrity of which there are hundreds to choose from.

As another person posted below, With the wild dresses and such she isn't covering any new ground here either. It's all been done by other performers dating back to the 1800's. A class on performers trying to shock their audiences might be a more appropriate class.

[trjones87]

10:32 PM on 09/12/2010

I took a Cyborgs in American Culture class which focused on literature and film involving cyborgs and robots. When the Bruce Willis film Surrogates came out it just so happened that one of my classmates knew the author (I live in Atlanta & attend Georgia State University). He sent him an email and Venditti agreed to lecture our class for the day and allowed us to preview some of the film. He was a very nice and cordial man who you could tell appreciated his success. He was even generous enough to sign our copies of his graphic novel.

[WhereBeTheOilBeezys]

09:46 PM on 09/12/2010

What is there to study about her other then her inability to write more then a 5 sentence song that repeats lyrically over and over. Her fashion is nothing that Madonna, Bowie, Marilyn Manson, etc hasn't done and I don't see her doing anything for society other then getting that blasted Poker Face song stuck in my head :(

[dwill123]

09:19 PM on 09/12/2010

A Lady Gaga class at one of the hardest colleges to get into, what a waste.