“Take It From Me” is a TODAY.com series where experts use their wisdom to explain trends or make recommendations within their fields. In this latest installment, an anthropology professor explains what Dolly Parton has to teach us all.
The news of the Dolly Parton’s passing at the age of 80 led to an outpouring of tributes from peers in the industry and fans.
After hearing the news, anthropology professor Sarah Phillips spent part of the afternoon of “curled in a ball” in her office, “just outright mourning Dolly and all that we’ve lost.”
“It’s been a real roller coaster. Like many people, I think I never really believed she was mortal,” she tells TODAY.com.
For Phillips, Parton’s death felt personal. An associate professor of anthropology at Indiana University Bloomington, Phillips taught a course called “The Anthropology of Dolly Parton” for two years in a row.
“We have graduated around 120 ‘Dolliologists,’” Phillips says.
The course, which is taught every spring semester with the help of four undergraduate teaching assistants and a graduate associate instructor, uses Parton as a lens to study sociocultural anthropology.
Phillips says Parton’s story is one-of-a-kind, in that by following its arc, a person can learn about regional differences in America, class, fame, femininity, workers’ rights, women’s rights, queer culture, education and more.
“I can’t think of anyone else that this approach would work as seamlessly as it does,” Phillips says.
By now, Parton’s rise is the stuff of legend. Born the fourth of 12 siblings in a one-room cabin in Tennessee, Parton exhibited a love of music at an early age. By 13, Johnny Cash had introduced her at the Grand Ole Opry. She moved to Nashville after graduation. Her big break came in 1964, when she was hand-picked by Porter Wagoner to co-star on his syndicated TV show. Her decision to go solo and leave the show inspired the song “I Will Always Love You,” one of her biggest hits.
She was known as much for her song-writing prowess as her distinct appearance, entrepreneurship and philanthropy. She was also a devoted wife, aunt and godmother. Parton was beloved in her home state for many reasons, including investing in the local economy by building Dollywood in Pigeon Forge.
The class uses Parton’s story as a way to talk about, well, America.
“We talk about regional stereotypes. We talk about language and dialect. We talk about the history of different forms of music, especially country music, and how it moved from different parts of Europe through the United States down to the South, and how Dolly and her people were part of that movement.”
At one point in the semester, the class watches “9 to 5,” the 1980 film Parton starred in with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda and wrote the lead song for, and connects it to the real-life office workers’ movement originating in Boston.
Another class is a lesson on regional stereotypes in the U.S, like how the idea of the hillbilly and redneck are curated and challenged in Parton’s album art and different periods of her career.
