Tag: Volume 1 | Page 3 | The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies

Academic Book Review of ‘Dangerous’ by Susan Fast

Posted on22nd September 201414th April 2020AuthorKarin Merx

Dangerous is a must read for every Michael Jackson fan, non-fan, critic or music lover. Dr. Susan Fast meticulously researched Michael Jackson’s 1991 album in a way that has never been done before and in doing so she puts Jackson back where he belongs; in the spotlight as the highly talented black musician and artist he was… and he was dangerous too!

The book also makes readers want to re-listen to the music and re-watch the short-films again and again.

‘Hee hee hee’: Michael Jackson and the Transgendered Erotics of Voice

Posted on18th September 201414th April 2020AuthorFrancesca Royster

‘Throats are part of the erotic act, commanding, whispering, swallowing. Through his cries, whispers, groans, whines, and grunts. Michael Jackson occupies a third space of gender.’ Francesca Royster explores the sexualisation of Jackson’s voice throughout his earlier solo works, ‘Off The Wall’, ‘Thriller’ and ‘Bad’ while contextualising his voice within the wider concept of African-American sexuality and its representation.

Raven Woods – Langston Hughes’s “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (1926)

Posted on23rd July 201414th April 2020AuthorRaven Woods

Placed with permission of the author Raven Woods

In 1926, poet and essayist Langston Hughes wrote a short but stirring piece that became a manifesto for the Harlem Renaissance, the great cultural movement that brought Black art, culture, and music to prominence in American society. Last spring, when I assigned this essay to one of my American Lit classes, it occurred to me that much of what Hughes wrote in 1926 could also apply to many of the trials and tribulations that Michael Jackson would endure as an African-American artist more than sixty years later. Here is Langston Hughes’s essay. The sections that are highlighted are my emphasis, as these are important points that I will return to later when addressing the essay’s relevance to Michael Jackson: