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Harry Styles: Texas university to launch course centring on former One Direction singer

‘Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity’ course launches in Spring next year

Megan Graye
Tuesday 19 July 2022 13:05 BST
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Harry Styles at Burberry

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You can now take a university course on the work of Harry Styles.

As of Spring next year, Texas State Honours College will be running an academic course entitled “Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity”.

Lecturer Louie Dean Valencia, who will teach the class, is a Digital History Professor at the college who specialises in subjects across “queer/youth, countercultures and anti/fascism”.

He applied for the course to be included in next year’s curriculum with a 23-page-long proposal that was “vetted by a panel of professors, approved by deans, department chairs, and program directors.”

Speaking to online platform Sh** you should care about on his inspiration behind the course, he said: “As a historian, I want the class to get to really see how the world has changed in the last 12 years or so, but also how to put that into historical context, through the lens of Harry Styles – and how they can learn from him and his art, activism, and philosophy, like any great artist.”

The class will include assignments on Styles’ former band, One Direction, as well as solo albums and films he’s starred in.

Valencia also tweeted that the course will cover subjects such as “fan/celebrity culture, song contests, queer spaces, consumerism, activism, and selections from many of Harry’s fave works of literature, music, films, and more”.

Students will also be tasked with creating and developing a podcast series during the semester.

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