MUMBAI: Seems like popstar Miley Cyrus has finally been brought to book, thanks to her inescapable antics and incomprehensive reactions, but not the way you would think. The young star will have an entire summer course dedicated to her, titled ‘The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender and Media’ at the Skidmore College of Liberal Arts at New York University.
The course has been developed by Assistant Professor Carolyn Cheroff, who conceived the idea following Cyrus’ twerky performance at the MTV VMAs. With it she hopes to use the pop star as ‘a lens into cultural conflict’, exploring race, class, gender and the ‘core issues of intersectionality theory’.
Chernoff has a good feeling about the class, which will consist of three two-and-a-half-hour sessions each week. An enthusiastic student tweeted the course syllabus, which explained how the class will explore Cyrus’s shift from Disney tween to twerk machine.
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“We will study core issues of intersectional theory, looking at race, class and gender as well as taking a feminist critique of media, using Miley as a lens through which to explore sociological thinking about identity, entertainment, media and fame,” the course flyer said.
Chernoff reportedly said, “Miley Cyrus is a surprisingly complicated cultural moment. I created [the course as a creative and rigorous way of looking at what’s relevant about sociology and sociology theory.”
“The twerk was heard round the world”, said the Assistant Professor. “All of a sudden, my students who claimed to be not that interested in Miley Cyrus had so much to say.” It was then that she drafted a lecture for Skidmore’s Centre for Sex and Gender Relations, presented in January, titled ‘The Rise and Fall of Miley Cyrus’.
“Miley is sometimes seen as a wild, terrible she-beast,” reports quoted Chernoff. She believes Cyrus has “had to rebrand [herself] as [a] wild, crazy, sexual being” Like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, her fellow former Disney stars. “This ties into the whole virgin/whore dichotomy.” Chernoff’s course description looks at Cyrus as not just a ‘chart-topping’, ‘tongue-flaunting’, occasionally “degrading” 21-year-old: she is also a locus for discussions of appropriation, queerness, gender stratification and the “hyper-commodification of childhood”.
However, Chernoff is serious about the course and is clearly not appreciative on Miley fans who hope to take this class for non-academic purposes. “Sorry, dudes, but this is sociology,” she said. “Learn to twerk on your own time.”
Universities have, for a long time now, taught students about older pop stars like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Duke Ellington. A good number of schools offer courses on Beyonce and Jay-Z. And like Kanye West, maybe she will drop in for a guest lecture
