College offers Sharapova media- meets-gender course

A litany of Sugarpova fans are already at the Maria Sharapova 401 level, and now a new college class can teach everyone else about her wider appeal and mark on culture.

The University of California, Santa Barbara will include a Sharapova-centric course that has fresh-faced coeds studying the Russian tennis star's body of work, including the influence she has made in global culture and how she has worked within social mores related to gender and media representation.

"My goal is for students to question culture," said the course's originator, UCSB professor and doctoral student Anita Stahl. "The point is not for them all to become Sharapova experts, but for them to think through the layered meanings of the culture they consume and are exposed to all the time."

Immigration and race are weighty topics up for discussion in this particular classroom. Yes, Professor Stahl is a tennis fan—and yes, Sharapova's Unstoppable autobiography is among the reads on her spring 2019 syllabus.