When University of South Carolina sociology professor Michael Deflem saw Lady Gaga appear on the "Tonight" show last January, he was immediately smitten. Since then he's attended 38 of her shows across the globe, collected more than 300 of her CDs and launched his own Lady Gaga fan site. Now he's offering a college course on Mother Monster titled Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame.

 

As he observed Lady Gaga's rise to fame, Deflem become intrigued by what makes a person famous and what it means to be famous in today's society, and that's exactly what the class delves into — from a sociological perspective, of course.