Dear god why

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You need to shut your piehole and actually look at all the good examples of our tertiary education instead of cherrypicking something that is obviously dumb to justify your capitalistic agenda.

They were an example of the exact audience this is targeted at.

The course on browsing Instagram was too challenging, they were losing students

Is it a course on defending your homicidal rapist husband?

"Okay class, today we're staring Chapter 3. Please open your textbook, turn to page 69, and read Her Cousin's Friend's Balls*."*

Another win for the bastion of critical thinking that is UC Berkeley

I was just thinking the other day on how her career’s trajectory after Pink Print could be a case study on an artist of “stature” giving up said stature for capital’s sake instead of improving her material and presentation.

Regressing to constantly shouting out Lil Wayne and leaning back on “Barbie shit” in the face of the late 2010’s female rapper boom which she was so clearly threatened and unprepared for. 💅

Ewww

Remember, these used to be respected institutions of higher learning.

Now they're just insanely expensive daycare for fragile adults.

When the "Underwater Basket Weaving" class is full but you still need those credits.

How to marry a pedophile 101

Groundbreaking

Berkeley deserves to be tossed away but let's not pretend music theory classes are anything new or any real indicator of quality of the school. Music theory classes are common, Mozart to the Beatles to 2pac.

Pls stop

In this thread: nobody who understands what comparative literature or music theory is, or why a professor might choose a catchy topic for a serious course.

You can study a pop culture phenomenon. What does it say about our society that she's so popular? What sociological and economic circumstances shaped her career? How does the music industry function financially and culturally? How do fandoms relate to political movements? What technological systems are used in her specific productions? Where does this moment fit into the story of popular music over the past century?

To quote Jim Carrey from The Sonic The Hedgehog movie: "Nobody cares."

I was convinced at first that this was a joke, apparently it is not. 💀

I'm not a musician, but isn't Music Theory the study of how to compose music? That would actually make sense as a course.

Are you maybe talking about Music History?

Perhaps I'm just crossing some wires and flip flopping the names of these courses, you're probably right. I've only taken one music theory course and in that professor's hands it was 40% music history I think I just mixed the two courses together.

Nevertheless music history would still make sense as a course.

Berkeley student here - it’s actually being offered potentially as a DeCal which are our version of like “fun blow off” courses people take for extra units and to pursue passion areas. We’ve had decals offered on numerous musical artists and topics such as poker, Kanye West, web design for beginners, etc.

>Nevertheless music history would still make sense as a course.

How so? I mean, I get that there is social importance to cataloguing the history of music, same as it's important to catalogue art history... but we're swinging this pendulum of liberal arts FAR too wide.

It doesn't make sense for kids to be dropping tens of thousand of dollars for the miniscule chance of being, at best, a museum director. The demand just isn't there.

I never took a music history class- but my brother took History of Hip Hop or some shit. He mentioned it was just a junk class for an easy credit- and, as a communications major, he was well familiarized with junk classes for easy credit.

I guess these classes would be helpful if your intention is to just sort of build the best possible bar-trivia team- but otherwise, I'm sort of failing to see the point of why we should be encouraging this.

>we're seeing this pendulum of liberal arts far too wide

There is nothing wrong with a course analyzing a specific individual and their impact. It's bizarre to act like this is overreach, especially in a art form filled with music defining names from Beethoven to Kanye.

You're also acting history of certain artists is anything new. Music Humanities has been a thing in Colombia since the 40s which some credits include basic introductions to various artists and their historical context.

The history and factors that contributed to the production of the music of many artists, and their music's infuence is important to understand and provide proper context to them or just to get a few credits under your belt.

>if your intention is to just build the best possible trivia tream

That's a bizarre handwave that can be applied to any course that focuses on history of any specific individual. Or anything higher education for that matter.

A whole course about a single artist is dumb.

You can do all the things you mentioned without just focusing on one artist.

That's just the hook to get your attention, which it clearly did. She's the entry point for the concepts and research skills that the students engage with in the course.

Merely studying literary theory is VERY dry. Applying literary theory to a pop star helps you understand both the theory and the world around you. It makes scholarship relevant.

Agree to disagree, I guess.

>That's a bizarre handwave that can be applied to any course that focuses on history of any specific individual. Or anything higher education for that matter.

Considering the state of college these days, that's sounds like a pretty accurate generalization.

As I said, bizarre handwave acting like any of this stuff is new or even bad.None of this is anything new to colleges, disregarding relevant education as only trivia is nonsensical as is your axe grinding against higher education.

thumbs up

For those who don’t know:

> Kenneth (Nicki’s husband) is a registered sex offender. He was convicted of first-degree attempted rape of a 16-year-old girl in 1995, and served time in a New York state prison for the crime.

He also first dated Minaj when she was 16 and he was 20.

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Also:

>The husband of rapper Nicki Minaj has been sentenced to three years probation and one year of home detention for failing to register as a sex offender in California.
>
>Kenneth Petty, who married Minaj in 2019, pleaded guilty to the federal charge in 2021, CBS News reported. He was also ordered to pay a $55,000 fine, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
>
>Petty moved to Los Angeles in July 2019, months before his marriage to Minaj, and “knowingly failed” to register as a sex offender as per the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, USA TODAY reported. He was arrested in 2020.

nice patience having skills

As far as I know, this started in the late 90s with courses on Kurt Cobain and one on Keanu Reeves. This is the same thing- cultural touchstones as allegories for and fractal embodiments of larger cultural movements and issues. Totally legit.

Grad school is about deep diving into narrow topics. By that point you have already done the broad analysis and now it is time to actuallt start moving the needle.

I taught a DeCal on South Park! It was fun AND educational. I've heard it went on for years after I left, so that's cool.

Go bears!

Not that weird to use popular culture as basis for class material. Dunno if I could write a semester's worth of material on Nicki, but hey, whatever.