Brooks plans to use Beyoncé’s extensive repertoire, including her live performance footage, as an entry point for exploring the works of significant Black intellectuals such as Frederick Douglass and Toni Morrison. The aim is to show how Beyoncé's music intersects with and sometimes challenges the “Black radical intellectual tradition.”

"We're going to be taking seriously the ways in which the critical work, the intellectual work of some of our greatest thinkers in American culture resonates with Beyoncé's music," Brooks stated, highlighting how her work has sparked broader conversations about race, gender, and activism. Beyoncé’s art is known for addressing issues such as Black Lives Matter and Black feminist discourse, creating a platform that invites dialogue on historical and present-day social struggles.

Beyoncé's contributions to music, coupled with her record-breaking 99 Grammy nominations, position her as an artist whose influence extends beyond the charts. According to Brooks, Beyoncé uniquely engages with activism through her long-form multimedia projects, amplifying the voices of grassroots movements and weaving a narrative of African American resilience and identity.

While courses on performers like Bob Dylan and Taylor Swift have gained traction in academia, Brooks believes Beyoncé’s work stands apart for its depth in historic and cultural resonance. She has previously taught about Black women in popular music at Princeton University, where students showed keen interest in Beyoncé's segment. The new Yale course is expected to draw significant attention, though Brooks aims to keep class sizes limited to foster in-depth discussions.

Brooks summed up Beyoncé’s unique place in cultural studies by emphasizing her commitment to preserving and showcasing historical memory through her art, noting that this quality is unparalleled in the music industry.