No summer sadness here.
Lana Del Rey’s ingenious contribution to the pressing problems in the world through her melancholic music will finally be studied next month at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute.
The university is launching a course devoted entirely to studying the iconic singer/songwriter’s connection to social justice movements, including Black Lives Matter, Me Too and Times Up, according to Variety.
The two-point course, titled “Topics in Recorded Music: Lana Del Rey,” runs from October 20 to December 8 and is taught by acclaimed journalist and author Kathy Iandoli.
The course will also explore the singer’s relationship with feminism, as well as her musical influences, the outlet reports.
According to Variety, the course description reads: “Over the course of eight critically acclaimed albums, the six-time Grammy-nominated artist has introduced a sad, melancholy and baroque version of dream pop that in turn helped to change and reinvent sound (and atmosphere). ) of mainstream music after the 2010s.
“Through her gripping imagery and her thematic focus on mental health and stories 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 chewing gum.”
Iandoli told the outlet that the singer, who graduated from NYC’s Fordham University, “is both a blueprint and a cautionary tale, a complicated pop star who resonates so much with her fans not because of how she makes them feel about her, but rather how she makes them feel about themselves.”
“She has changed the parameters of baroque pop and now more specifically ‘sad girl pop’ through her music, expanding the subject matter which is sometimes controversial and challenging. There are so many pieces in this mosaic that we have now come to know as Lana Del Rey, and this course explores every dimension of it,” she added.
Earlier this year, the university’s Clive Davis Institute introduced its first-ever Taylor Swift course, which ran from January 26 to March 9.
The course proved so popular that the University of Texas at Austin followed suit, and now offers students a songwriting course focused on the 11-time Grammy Award winner’s approach to songwriting.
The English professor Dr. Elizabeth Scala, dubbed “Literary Contests and Contexts: The Taylor Swift Songbook,” will be teaching the course starting this fall.