Bad Bunny course at Wellesley College teaches Puerto Rican history, culture
Just one week after his historic Grammy win, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, better known to fans as Bad Bunny, will headline the Super Bowl halftime show. At Wellesley College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts, students are unpacking the cultural and political significance of the Puerto Rican superstar's work.
The college was the first institution in the nation to offer a course on Bad Bunny. While Bad Bunny gets you to the classroom, it's the history that will keep you there.
Bad Bunny course at Wellesley College
The name of the course is "Bad Bunny: Race, Gender and Empire in Reggaeton."
"Even though it looks a little fluffy on the surface, it's actually pretty intense," said Petra Rivera-Rideau, the associate professor who teaches the class.
"There's a lot to say about Bad Bunny. But again, we want to know what makes him and what makes him a part of this history of colonialism, right? The current crisis of gentrification in Puerto Rico. So, we learn about tax imperialism, which is this theory that U.S. tax code can be used to further imperial...colonialism between Puerto Rico in the U.S.," Rivera Rivera-Rideau explained.
Ultimately, the author and professor said Bad Bunny opens the door for students to learn about Puerto Rico beyond the surface.
"What I think makes it so special is, that while you are learning about Bad Bunny, you're learning a lot about the politics of Puerto Rico," said 21-year-old Dharlenny Soto, an astrophysics major. "Whether it's the early history or the debt crisis [which] we're learning this week, there's a lot that can be shown through his music and how it's impacting, not just his life, but the people as well."
"I heard about it on the news, I read it...it was mentioned in a New York Times article. I heard it mentioned on Jimmy Fallon," said Madeline Mayes, a junior, domestic exchange student from Smith College.
Rivera-Rideau said she started teaching this course in 2022.
Entry point for Puerto Rican history
"It attracts students from all over. He's very Puerto Rico specific, which allows us to make this class and use him as an entry point for Puerto Rican history," Rivera-Rideau said. "But, unfortunately, a lot of the crises that he's talking about, environmental, natural disasters, global warming, gentrification, things that people can relate to—all over the place."
She said she loves to see the enthusiasm students still have for the class.
"Everything I've learned within these first few weeks has been incredibly enriching," said Madeline Mayes, a domestic exchange student from Smith College. "The complications of Puerto Rican citizenship in the U.S. for instance. The long history, complicated history of Puerto Rico and the mainland. It's all so complicated and impacts us as Americans in ways I wouldn't have realized or known about prior to taking the class. This is not just art for the sake of art; it's art for the sake of activism."
"I think it's a special connection that's happening in this class," said Soto.
Also helping to bring this class to life is a new book co-authored by Rivera-Rideau.
"Vanessa Diaz and I wrote it together and it is sort of the evolution of first working together on the syllabus," Rivera-Rideau explained.
The Bad Bunny Syllabus
The Bad Bunny Syllabus is a website she created with Diaz, a professor at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles.
"We had the idea of making a Bad Bunny syllabus because other academics were like, 'oh what are you doing in your class?' So, that website is a resource for educators that gives people a lot of the readings. It shows you what we're reading in our classes, what we're working with in our classes, so people can explore on their own," Rivera-Rideau said.
She says as The Bad Bunny Syllabus grew, they decided to turn it into a book project.
"So, the book, like our classes, uses Bad Bunny's career, starting in 2016, up through the release of Debí Tirar Más Fotos in 2025. So, we look at the arc of his career in this bigger context of Puerto Rican history in the past 30 years," Rivera-Rideau said.
Rivera-Rideau said she thinks this course really shows the positive impacts of meeting students where they are to teach them something.
"It's a really great teaching tool to get students invested," said Rivera-Rideau.