As the New York Times reports, the University of South Carolina at Columbia will soon launch a course involving the study of 24-year-old controversialist pop star Lady Gaga. The professor wants to “unravel some of the sociologically relevant dimensions of the fame of Lady Gaga.”
Christian Tappe at ISI:
If a course called “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame” doesn’t perfectly encapsulate the woeful state of American higher education, then I don’t know what does. Maybe a course about Ke$ha and the relative value of world currencies?
The University of South Carolina plans to offer a course on Lady Gaga in the spring semester. The prof is apparently a big Gaga fan. He owns over 300 of her records, though by my count she only has two albums (hey, this isn’t a math course), and has even started a fan site devoted to Ms. Gaga.
Camille Paglia last month described the pop star as “calculated and artificial,” “clinical and strangely antiseptic.” Perhaps her essay will become required reading for the course.
The perils of a “relevant” education.