New Course Centering Beyoncé And Her ‘Cowboy Carter’ Album Set To Be Taught At Harvard University – AfroTech

A course on Beyoncé and her album “Cowboy Carter” (2024) has arrived at Harvard University.

According to The Harvard Gazette, a course titled “American Requiem: Beyoncé, Benefits and the Gap Between Promise and Delivery,” is being taught by Ayushi Roy, an adjunct lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School. The course uses the Grammy-winning album to explore digital technology and how to leverage it to improve government services.

In conversation with The Harvard Gazette, Roy discussed her inspiration for the course. She said she saw a pattern in the album of overlooked women and marginalized people, which was similar in government assistance programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which often fail to fully consider constituents in their design and delivery.

“She frames the album as a conversation about the erasure of African American people from country music,” said Roy, per The Harvard Gazette. “You realize that she’s actually making a commentary about Black erasure from ‘country,’ the body politic, not country as a genre of music, and that really inspired me.”

“My hope is that I help the next generation of policymakers think more expansively about the kinds of input that define good policy,” she also mentioned.

In the class, students listened to songs like “Protector,” which talks about motherhood, while officials like former California secretary of health and human services discussed the state’s child welfare system and the challenges parents face in being reunited with their children, according to the outlet. To better understand the issue, a team of students built a child reunification simulation program that outlines the process, including lengthy court hearings and required parenting classes.

“I do know as a practitioner, having served in the government for over a dozen years, that the building of technology is the easy part; managing the political feasibility and the implementation is the hard part,” Roy told The Harvard Gazette. “Applying private sector technology practices in government is not the solve. It’s really about building this incredibly well-versed student and student professional base of people that think about implementation critically.”