Home » Volume 2: Issue 3 May – June 2016

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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.

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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.

Volume 2: Issue 3 May – June 2016

Abstract
This year William Shakespeare has his 400th anniversary and Michael Jackson his 7th. We also lost the great musician Prince. In this issue we published MJ Studies Today, we feature author Susan Woodward, added episodes 7, 8 and 9 of Michael Jackson’s Dream Lives On and two academic book reviews.

The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies asks that you acknowledge The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies as the source of our Content; if you use material from The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies online, we request that you link directly to the stable URL provided. If you use our content offline, we ask that you credit the source as follows: “Courtesy of The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies.”

v2-i3Contents

1. Editorial by Karin Merx

2. Episode 7 – MJ 7 Meets Shakespeare 400‘
by Karin Merx & Elizabeth Amisu

3. ‘MJ Studies Today V (15-05-16)‘
by Elizabeth Amisu

4. An Interview with Susan Woodward
by The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies

5. Episode 8 – MJAS Exclusive: Michael Jackson & Prince Part I (with Lisha McDuff & Roberta Meek)
by Karin Merx & Elizabeth Amisu and guests academic Lisha McDuff & academic Roberta Meek

6.  Episode 9 – MJAS Exclusive: Michael Jackson & Prince Part II (with Lisha McDuff & Roberta Meek)
by Karin Merx & Elizabeth Amisu and guests academic Lisha McDuff & academic Roberta Meek

7. Academic Book Review: Defending A King ~ His Life & Legacy: A Michael Jackson Biography’ by Dr. Karen Moriarty‘
by Elizabeth Amisu

8.Academic Book Review: Making Michael: Inside The Career Of Michael Jackson’ by Mike Smallcombe‘
by Elizabeth Amisu

1 Editorial

This year William Shakespeare has his 400th anniversary and Michael Jackson his 7th. Celebrating the work of an artist with a festival and discussing his work in academia, is a way to preserve the legacy. Michael Jackson’s 7th anniversary and Shakespeare’s 400th was reason enough to draw the connections between the two legacies. We also lost music legend Prince, who was considered a rival of Michael Jackson. Unfortunately, he died just as unforeseen as Michael Jackson. The Journal decided to pay attention to both great artists.

In this issue, we discuss Shakespeare and Michael Jackson and their legacy. We draw several connections between the need to celebrate Shakespeare’s legacy and the debates how to preserve Michael Jackson’s legacy in episode 7 of Michael Jackson’s Dream Lives On. In MJ Studies Today, Elizabeth discusses the cultural impact of Michael Jackson’s art.

Featured author in this issue is Susan Woodward, who wrote the book Otherness and Power: Michael Jackson and His Media Critics. In the interview, Woodward discusses her process and research.

Episodes 8 and 9 of Michael Jackson’s Dream Lives On we pay attention to Prince’s sudden passing and discuss both great artists Michael Jackson and Prince. In these episodes, we have academic Lisha McDuff and academic Roberta Meek as guests.

In the world of Michael Jackson more books (biographies) are written and editor Elizabeth Amisu wrote the reviews. She reviewed Karen Moriarty’s Defending A King ~ His Life & Legacy: A Michael Jackson Biography and Mike Smallcomb’s Making Michael: Inside The Career Of Michael Jackson

Karin Merx

2 Episode 7 – MJ 7 Meets Shakespeare 400‘
by Karin Merx & Elizabeth Amisu

 In this seventh episode, Elizabeth and Karin discuss the fact that this year is the seventh anniversary since Michael Jackson’s death, and it is also the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare. We draw several connections between the need to celebrate Shakespeare’s legacy and the ongoing debates about how to preserve Michael Jackson’s. As always, our discussions take us into new and exciting places of thought and expansion.

http://michaeljacksonstudies.org/episode-7-7516-mj-7-meets-shakespeare-400/

3 MJ Studies Today V (15-05-16)
by Elizabeth Amisu

May 2016 is all about the academic study of Michael Jackson’s art, cultural impact and critical reception.

http://michaeljacksonstudies.org/mj-studies-today-v-15-05-16/

4 An Interview with Susan Woodward
by The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies

Susan Woodward, author of Otherness and Power: Michael Jackson and His Media Critics, discusses her process and her research.

http://michaeljacksonstudies.org/an-interview-with-susan-woodward/

5 Episode 8 – MJAS Exclusive: Michael Jackson & Prince Part I (with Lisha McDuff & Roberta Meek)
by Karin Merx & Elizabeth Amisu and guests academic Lisha McDuff & academic Roberta Meek

In this eighth episode, an MJAS Exclusive, Elizabeth and Karin are joined by guests, fellow academics, Lisha McDuff and Roberta Meek, to discuss Michael Jackson’s art, resonance and cultural impact alongside the late musician, Prince. In the first of two podcast episodes, we delve into facets of Jackson and Prince that you may never have thought of before, offering new perspectives on their careers and their posthumous reception.

http://michaeljacksonstudies.org/episode-8-28516-mjas-exclusive-michael-jackson-prince-part-i/

6  Episode 9 – MJAS Exclusive: Michael Jackson & Prince Part II (with Lisha McDuff & Roberta Meek)
by Karin Merx & Elizabeth Amisu and guests academic Lisha McDuff & academic Roberta Meek

In this ninth episode, part II of the MJAS Exclusive, Elizabeth and Karin and their guests, fellow academics, Lisha McDuff and Roberta Meek, continue the discussion on Michael Jackson’s art, resonance and cultural impact alongside the late musician, Prince.

http://michaeljacksonstudies.org/episode-9-7-6-2016-mjas-exclusive-michael-jackson-prince-part-ii/

7 Academic Book Review: Defending A King ~ His Life & Legacy: A Michael Jackson Biography by Dr. Karen Moriarty
by Elizabeth Amisu

Moriarty’s book stands at an impressive 538 pages and begins with the epigraph by F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy’. Jackson’s life often played out like a work of fiction, as comparisons of Jackson to Peter Pan abound. Moriarty’s book, however, stays firmly in the solid ground of reality.

http://michaeljacksonstudies.org/academic-book-review-of-defending-a-king-his-life-legacy-a-michael-jackson-biography-by-dr-karen-moriarty/

8 Academic Book Review: Making Michael: Inside The Career Of Michael Jackson by Mike Smallcombe
by Elizabeth Amisu

There seems to be three types of biography when it comes to Michael Jackson: the good, bad, and the ugly. It is refreshing to be able to say that Mike Smallcombe’s Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson is in the first of those three.  It makes an excellent addition to the collections of those who already own several books on the artist. At a whopping 450 pages, it heralds the opening of a new door on cradle-to-grave biographical accounts of Michael Jackson’s life and work.

http://michaeljacksonstudies.org/academic-book-review-of-making-michael-inside-the-career-of-michael-jackson-by-mike-smallcombe/

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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.