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How is MJAS different from a fan-site or fanzine?

We deliver primarily academic research-based content and we also provide resources for academics and teachers. We archive online content so that we can deliver researchers a referencing service. We are impartial and are not affiliated with any institution. Therefore we remain objective and balanced in our content. We provide content of a diversity which gives us perspectives of all kinds and makes very clear that we can study Michael Jackson from a wide variety of subject specialisms, from Popular Culture and Literature to African-American Heritage.

What Services Do You Provide?

We provide a very diverse range of content, including a monthly academic podcast, essays, opinion pieces, editorials, journal issues and volumes, resources, detailed academic book reviews, exclusive authorial interviews, a monthly column which updates readers on the world of Michael Jackson Studies, which is the only one of its kind. We also provide much-needed academic publications on Michael Jackson’s artistry.

Journals & Collections

This list has been compiled by The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies Online. Please email relevant additions or queries to the editors here. This online reference list is a collection of available resources on the art and cultural discourse around Michael Jackson. If you use our reference list, clearly reference The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies Online, with our url, http://www.michaeljacksonstudies.org.

Entries in Journals & Collections
Amisu, Elizabeth. “‘Arrojar Piedras Y Esconder Las Manos’: La Personalidad Humana De Michael Jackson.” [In Spanish]. The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 3 (2015): 3.
———. “‘Bad (1987)’.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 2 (2014): 4.
———. “‘Crack Music’: Michael Jackson’s ‘Invincible’.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 2 (2015): 1.
———. “‘Crack Music’: Michael Jackson’s ‘Invincible’ – Dangerous Philosophies 4/12.” [In Italian]. The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 3 (2015): 4.
———. “The Dangerous Philosophies of Michael Jackson.” [In Italian]. The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 3 (2015): 4.
———. “‚Die Insel Ist Voller Geräusche‘: Erneuter Besuch Beim „Peter Pan Des Pop“.” [In German]. The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 3 (2015): 2.
———. “Earth Song: Inside Michael Jackson’s Magnum Opus by Joseph Vogel (Blake Vision, 2011).” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 1 (2014): 1.
———. “¿Estamos Perdiendo a Michael Jackson De Nuevo?” [In Spanish]. The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 3 (2015): 3.
———. “Heard It on the Grapevine.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 1 (2014): 3.
———. “‘The Isle Is Full of Noises’: Revisiting the Peter Pan of Pop.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 1 (2014): 2.
———. “On Michael Jackson’s ‘Dancing the Dream’.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 2 (2014): 3.
———. “‘Throwing Stones to Hide Your Hands’: The Mortal Persona of Michael Jackson.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 1 (2014): 5.
Arnold, Regina “Profit without Honor: Michael Jackson in and out of America, 1983–2009.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 23, no. 1 (2011): 75–83.
Bayer, Konrad Sidney. “The Semiosis of Soul: Michael Jackson’s Use of Popular Music Conventions.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 3, no. 7 (2010): 45-63.
Bowers, Toni. “Dancing with Michael Jackson.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 4 (2015): 3.
Brackett, David. “Black or White? Michael Jackson and the Idea of Crossover.” Popular Music and Society 35, no. 2 (2012): 169-85.
Breaux, Richard M. ““I’m a Cartoon!” the Jackson 5ive Cartoon as Comodified Civil Rights & Black Power
Ideologies, 1971-1973.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 3, no. 7 (2010): 79-99.
Bremner, Anne Melani. “Lessons from the Michael Jackson Trial. Part 2: Why the Defense Won – What They Did Right.”? (?).
Broertjes, Andrew. ““He’s Sending His People Messages out of His Pain”: Michael Jackson and the Black Community.” Popular Music and Society 36, no. 5 (2013): 677-98.
Burnett, Robert and Burt Deivert. “Black or White: Michael Jackson’s Video as a Mirror of Popular Culture.” Popular Music and Society 19, no. 3 (1995).
Carr, Firpo W. “Michael Jackson Motivated.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 3, no. 7 (2010): 42-44.
Caruthers, Jakeya, and Alisa Bierria. “Stay with Me: Reflections on Michael Jackson, Sound, Sex, and (Racial) Solidarity.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 23, no. 1 (2011): 125-32.
Chin, Elizabeth. “Michael Jackson’s Panther Dance: Double Consciousness and the Uncanny Business of Performing While Black.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 23, no. 1 (2011): 58-74.
Cooper, B. Lee, and William L. Schurk. “Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5.” Popular Music and Society 35, no. 2 (2012): 317-19.
Danielsen, Anne. “The Sound of Crossover: Micro-Rhythm and Sonic Pleasure in Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”.” Popular Music and Society 35, no. 2 (2012): 151-68.
Delmont, Matthew. “Michael Jackson & Television before Thriller.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 3, no. 7 (2010): 64-78.
Ebmeier, Jochen. “Das Phänomen Michael Jackson.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 2 (2014): 2.
Fast, Susan. “Difference That Exceeded Understanding: Remembering Michael Jackson (1958–2009).” Popular Music and Society 33, no. 2 (2010): 259-66.
———. “Michael Jackson’s Queer Musical Belongings.” Popular Music & Society 49, no. 2 (2012): 281-300.
———. “Susan Fast: Michael Jackson’s Dangerous Album – Kapitel ‘Soul’-‘Seele’.” [In German]. The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 4 (2015): 1.
Faust, Jeremy Samuel. ““When You Have to Say ‘I Do’”: Orientalism in Michael Jackson’s “Liberian Girl”.” Popular Music and Society 35, no. 2 (2012): 223-40.
Fischer, D. “Wannabe Startin’ Somethin’: Michael Jackson’s Critical Race Representation.” Journal of Popular Music Studies (2011): 96-107.
Fischer, Dawn-Elissa. “Wannabe Startin’ Somethin’: Michael Jackson’s Critical Race Representation.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 23, no. 1 (2011): 96-107.
Gomez-Barris, M., and H. Gray. “Michael Jackson, Television, and Post-Op Disasters.” Television & New Media 7, no. 1 (2006): 40-51.
Gondwe, Gregory. “Going Beyond the Eye: The Visual and Oral Aesthetics of Michael Jackson from an African Perspective.” Visual Communication Quarterly 20, no. 4 (2013): 239-45.
Goodman, Melinda. “Eulogy for Michael Jackson.” Bridges 15, no. 2 (2010): 37-38.
Hills, M. “Michael Jackson Fans on Trial? Documenting Emotivism and Fandom in Wacko About Jacko.” Social Semiotics (2007): 459-77.
Hollander, P. “Michael Jackson, the Celebrity Cult, and Popular Culture.” Society (2009): 1-6.
Izod, John. “Androgyny and Stardom: Cultural Meanings of Michael Jackson.” The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal 14, no. 3 (1995): 63-74.
Jackson, Michael. “Love: The Human Family’s Most Precious Legacy.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 3, no. 7 (2010): 4-13.
———. “Michael Jackson Appears at Oxford University.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 31 (2001): 18.
Johansson, Mats. “Michael Jackson and the Expressive Power of Voice-Produced Sound.” Popular Music and Society 35, no. 2 (2012): 261-79.
Khan, Amir. “Michael Jackson’s Ressentiment: ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘Smooth Criminal’ in Conversation with Fred Astaire.” Popular Music and Society 35, no. 2 (2012): 187-201.
King, Jason. “Form and Function: Super Stardom and Aesthetics in the Music Videos of Michael and Janet Jackson.” Velvet Light Trap 44 (1999): 80-96.
Lynch, Christopher. “Ritual Transformation through Michael Jackson’s Music Video.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 25, no. 2 (2001): 114-31.
Mann, R. S. “Neuroscience. The Michael Jackson Fly.” Science 344, no. 6179 (Apr 4 2014): 48-9.
Martin, Sylvia J. “The Roots and Routes of Michael Jackson’s Global Identity.” Society 49, no. 3 (2012): 284-90.
Martinec, Radan. “Construction of Identity in Michael Jackson’s Jam.” Social Semiotics 10, no. 3 (2000): 313-29.
McCristal, Jerome. “The Michael Jackson Pill: Equality, Race, and Culture.” Michigan Law Review 92, no. 8 (1994): 2613-44.
Mercer, Kobena. “Monster Metaphors: Notes on Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller.” Screen 27, no. 1 (1986): 26-43.
Merx, Karin. “‘Dangerous’ Von Dr. Susan Fast.” [In German]. The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 3 (2015): 2.
———. ““Dangerous” by Dr. Susan Fast.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 1 (2014): 4.
———. “From Throne to Wilderness: Michael Jackson’s ‘Stranger in Moscow’ and the Foucauldian Outlaw.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 4 (2015): 4.
Mitchell, Gregory. ““Michael, Eles Não Ligam Pra Gente!” Brazilian Rentboys, Queer Affinity, and the Michael Jackson Exception.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 23, no. 1 (2011): 109-23.
Nyong’o, Tavia. “Have You Seen His Childhood? Song, Screen, and the Queer Culture of the Child in Michael Jackson’s Music.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 23, no. 1 (2011): 40-57.
O’Brien, Sandra. “Michael Jackson Story Quilt: Michael’s Message in Fabric and Felt.” LMJ Magazine (29 July 2015).
Ostaszewska, Aneta “Michael Jackson’s Death as a Social Event.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 3 (2015): 1.
Poulson-Bryant, Scott. “Michael by Michael Jackson.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 23, no. 2 (2011): 249-51.
Roberts, Tamara. “Michael Jackson’s Kingdom: Music, Race, and the Sound of the Mainstream.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 23, no. 1 (2011): 19-39.
Roberts, Tamara, and Brandi Wilkins Catanese. “Michael Jackson in/as U.S. Popular Culture.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 23, no. 1 (2011): 1-2.
Rossiter, Brian. ““They Don’t Care About Us”: Michael Jackson’s Black Nationalism.” Popular Music and Society 35, no. 2 (2012): 203-22.
Royster, Francesca T. “‘Hee Hee Hee’: Michael Jackson and the Transgendered Erotics of Voice.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 3 (2015): 5.
Scriven, Darryl. “Michael Jackson & the Psycho/Biology of Race.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 3, no. 7 (2010): 100-05.
Silberman, Seth Clark. “Presenting Michael Jackson™.” Social Semiotics (2007): 417-40.
Sokol, Daniel K. “Ethics Man: Hippocrates, Michael Jackson, and Medical Ethics.” British Medical Journal 339, no. 7720 (2009): 541.
Stegner-Petitjean, Isabelle. “‘The Voice in the Mirror’: Michael Jackson: From a Vocal Identity to Its Double in Sound.” Volume! 8, no. 2 (2011): 222-53.
Vigo, Julian. “Metaphor of Hybridity: The Body of Michael Jackson.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 3, no. 7 (2010): 29-41.
Vogel, Joseph. ““I Ain’t Scared of No Sheets”: Re-Screening Black Masculinity in Michael Jackson’s Black or White.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 27, no. 1 (2015): 90-123.
Wallace, Michele. “Michael Jackson, Black Modernisms and ‘the Ecstasy of Communication’.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 4 (2015): 2.
———. “Michael Jackson, Black Modernisms and the Ecstasy of Communication.” Third Text 3, no. 7 (1989): 11-22.
Warwick, Jacqueline. ““You Can’t Win, Child, but You Can’t Get out of the Game”: Michael Jackson’s Transition from Child Star to Superstar.” Popular Music and Society 35, no. 2 (2012): 241-59.
Williams, Gershom. “Michael Jackson: Color Complex and the Politics of White Supremacy.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 3, no. 7 (2010): 106-12.
Yeoh Kah Sin, Dennis. “‘Did I Scare You?’: The Curious Case of Michael Jackson as Gothic Narrative.” Studies in Gothic Fiction 1, no. 1 (2009).
Zien, Katherine, and Jason Lazarus. “Carving a Sonic Path through Stratified Spaces: The Michael Jackson Memorial Procession.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 23, no. 1 (2011): 85-93.

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Mission Statement

Michael Jackson Academic Studies (MJAS) is dedicated to the rigorous, interdisciplinary study of Michael Jackson’s work as a unified aesthetic system. Grounded in art history, visual culture, musicology, dance studies, early modern studies and film theory, MJAS approaches Jackson not as a biographical problem to be defended or debunked, but as a major late-20th-century artist whose work reshaped the relationship between sound, image, body, and mass media.

The journal foregrounds form, lineage, and reception history, situating Jackson within global artistic traditions, from classical European aesthetics and Black diasporic performance to postmodern visual culture. By refusing reductive moral binaries and sensationalist framings, MJAS provides a scholarly space in which Jackson’s art can be interpreted with the seriousness routinely afforded to canonical figures.

Our aim is not rehabilitation, but understanding: to examine how Jackson’s work functions, why it mattered, and what it reveals about race, embodiment, modernity, and the aesthetics of popular culture.

What is The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies?

An academic, scholarly journal, which is peer-reviewed, in which academic writing and scholarship relating to Michael Jackson can be accessed. Academic journals are one of the most wonderful ways to share academic criticism and research with interested parties. This research is presented as books, courses, events, essays, teaching resources, columns, articles, book reviews, academic podcasts and original research. In addition, we publish author interviews.

Why Michael Jackson?

It is a little-known fact that academic, well-researched “books on Elvis Presley alone outnumber titles on Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, andMichael Jackson combined”. (Vogel, Man in the Music). Whereas an artist like Michael Jackson is incredibly visible through the media and tabloid coverage, research on his art remains comparatively small. If this continues Michael Jackson’s contributions could be written out of history in just a few decades. Therefore, this journal nurtures, fosters, protects, preserves and grows the vital research and recognition of his work.

Who are the Editors?

The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies has three editors: Kerry Hennigan, Elizabeth Amisu and Karin Merx.

Where does your content come from?

Our content comes from academics and researchers around the world who wish to professionally publish their work. A list of all of our contributors can be found here.

Why do you have a Podcast

Podcasts are a fantastic way of getting academic ideas around Michael Jackson into the public sphere in a way that is easily accessible to listeners. Presented by the journal’s editors, it is the world’s first academic podcast which solely discusses the art of Michael Jackson as well as the broader contexts in which his music, performance and short films were created and received. Each podcast is filled to the brim with academic insights, a plethora of references from a range of academic disciplines, humor and a great deal of discussion, taking Michael Jackson’s work and the study of its reception to new heights.
MichaelJackson’s Dream Lives On: An Academic Conversation is our official, original monthly/fortnightly academic podcast which focuses on the life, art and creative work of Michael Jackson. Recently, featured on the iTunes ‘New and Noteworthy’ lists, Michael Jackson’s Dream Lives On: An Academic Conversation is the world’s foremost podcast on Michael Jackson in academic studies. It is available via iTunes, Android, Email, RSS, and Stitcher. Listen here.