Sign of the Times: University to offer Harry Styles studies

Entertainment

A university in Texas has announced it will offer a course based on the work of former One Direction star Harry Styles.

The course is titled Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity: Identity, the Internet, and European Pop Culture and will be on offer at Texas State University Honours College from next spring.

It is the latest in a long line of celebrity-themed university courses, with others based around stars such as Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Jay Z and Kanye West, and The Beatles.

The Styles course will focus on the pop megastar’s work, both in music and film, in order to “understand the cultural and political development of the modern celebrity”.

Dr Louie Dean Valencia announced the news on Twitter, citing it as the first course of its kind.

Dr Valencia wrote: “It’s official, official. I’m the world’s first ever university course on the work of #HarryStyles.

“It’s happening Spring 2023 at @TXST University. This is what tenure looks like. Let’s gooooo!”

He also shared the course description, which reads: “This course focuses on British musician Harry Styles and popular European culture to understand the cultural and political development of the modern celebrity as related to questions of gender and sexuality, race, class, nation and globalism, media, fashion, fan culture, internet culture, and consumerism.”