Princeton University is entering the chat when it comes to celebrating and educating their student body on the culture. The ivy league school is expanding its hip-hop studies offerings with a new Spring 2026 course that reframes the culture through the contributions of women. Titled Miss-Education: The Women of Hip-Hop, the class positions women not as side figures in the genre’s story, but as central architects of its sound, politics, and intellectual foundation.
Designed as a hybrid of seminar, research lab, and performance workshop, the course pushes back against narratives that have historically minimized women’s influence in hip-hop. Instead, it treats their creative and political labor as essential to the culture’s evolution.
The course will be taught by a multidisciplinary team that includes hip-hop educator Chesney Snow, culture and gender scholar Dr. Francesca D’Amico-Cuthbert, and Canadian recording artist Eternia, who is widely recognized for her advocacy around gender equity in hip-hop. Their combined backgrounds span academia, archival research, and the music industry.
According to the course description, students will study hip-hop through a gendered and interdisciplinary framework, following its development through the work of women artists, organizers, and thinkers. The syllabus covers early trailblazers like MC Sha Rock and Roxanne Shanté, as well as influential figures such as Queen Latifah, Sister Souljah, Lauryn Hill, Bahamadia, Lil’ Kim, and Cardi B.
Beyond analysis, students will engage in preservation practices, including archiving, oral history, performance-based research, and podcasting, with attention to how cultural memory is formed and maintained. Guest speakers from within the culture are expected to join the class.
Held at Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts and open to students across disciplines with no prerequisites, Miss-Education reflects the university’s growing commitment to interdisciplinary, public-facing arts education and marks a meaningful moment for the study of women’s impact on hip-hop.