Photo Credit: Justin Higuchi / CC by 2.0
New York University is following up its Taylor Swift course offering with a new one for Lana Del Rey.
The NYU course will examine the singer’s impact on the music landscape and her connection to social justice movements. According to Variety, the coursework for “Topics in Recorded Music: Lana Del Rey” will “examine Del Rey’s contributions to 21st Century pop stardom, her relationship to feminism, her musical influences and artists she has influenced, and her connection to social justice movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and #TimesUp.”
The course is set to run from October 20 to December 8 and will be taught by journalist and author Kathy Iandoli.
“Over the course of eight critically-acclaimed albums, the six-time Grammy nominated artist has introduced a sad core, melancholic, and baroque version of dream pop that in turn helped shift and reinvent the sound (and mood) of mainstream music beyond the 2010s,” reads the course description.
“Through her arresting visuals and her thematic attention to mental health and tales of toxic, damaged love, Del Rey provided a new platform for artists of all genders to create ‘anti-pop’ works of substance that could live in a mainstream once categorized as bubblegum.”
New York University has offered coursework surrounding music industry icons before. Earlier this year, the university offered a course on Taylor Swift that aimed to explore “the culture and politics of teen girlhood in pop music, fandom, media studies, whiteness and power as it relates to her image and the images of those who have both preceded and succeeded her.”
Lana Del Rey quit social media in 2021, saying she has so many other pursuits and interests that require privacy and transparency for her. She thanked her fans for her support and said she was working on a compilation of older songs and a few newer songs “written by family and friends and mostly old collaborators.”