Madonna Rebel Heart 2015 (cropped) - scripture

Madonna studies (also called Madonna scholarship, Madonna-ology or Madonna Phenomenon) is the study of the work and life of American singer-songwriter

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...

using an

interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

approach incorporating

cultural studies Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...

and

media studies Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostl ...

. In a general sense, it could refer to any academic studies devoted to her. After Madonna's debut in 1983, the discipline did not take long to start up and the field appeared in the mid-1980s, achieving its peak in the next decade. Educator David Buckingham deemed her presence in academic circles as "a meteoric rise to academic

canonisation Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of s ...

". The rhetoric academic view of that time, majority in the sense of

postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...

, generally considered her as " the most significant artist of the late twentieth century" thus she is understood variously and as a vehicle to open up issues. In the 21st century, academic studies about Madonna have remained and continued in many aspects. At the height of its developments, authors of these academic writings were sometimes called "Madonna scholars" or "Madonnologists", and both

E. Ann Kaplan E. Ann Kaplan is an American professor, author, and director. She currently teaches English at the Stony Brook State University of New York, and is the founder and director of The Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University. She coined the term ...

and John Fiske were classified as precursors. These studies analyzed several topics, but mostly Madonna studies involved in the study of gender, feminism, race, multiculturalism, sexuality, and the mass media. The wide-ranging

resources Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their av ...

used included, her

films A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

songs A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetition ...

, live performances,

books A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physic ...

, interviews or her

videos Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) system ...

. Both Madonna studies and its authors received a variety and a large amount of criticisms from academy and media outlets. It was also, however, defended in equal measure. The Madonna studies played a major role for the direction of the American cultural studies, and brought pop artists to the foreground of scholarly attention. The vast academic literature on Madonna, from academic conferences to journals, courses, theses,

, seminars and textbooks made Madonna as ubiquitous in academic discourse as she was in the popular media. Also, Madonna's semiotic was diversified in virtually all theoretical stripe by her scholars, each of whom had their own take on her role in society. With all of this, Madonna became for a while, the most studied pop artist or female artiste figure in universities.

Terminology

The field is commonly called Madonna studies, and that phrase popped up in the late-1980s according to writer

Maura Johnston Maura K. Johnston (born May 28, 1975) is a writer, editor and music critic. A member of Boston College's journalism faculty, she has written for ''Rolling Stone'', ''The Boston Globe'', ''Pitchfork'', ''The Awl'', ''The New York Times'', ''Spin' ...

. Although numerous academics like David Gauntlett used that term, scholars such as

Janice Radway Janice Radway (born January 29, 1949) is an American literary and cultural studies scholar. Education Radway holds a BA from Michigan State University, 1971, and an MA from State University of New York, Stony Brook, 1972. She earned her PhD fro ...

and

Suzanna Danuta Walters Suzanna Danuta Walters is the director of the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and professor of sociology at Northeastern University, Boston. She is also the editor-in-chief of '' Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society'' and ...

to journalists like

Maureen Orth Maureen Orth is an American journalist, author, and a Special Correspondent for ''Vanity Fair'' magazine. She is the founder of Marina Orth Foundation, which has established a model education program in Colombia emphasizing technology, English, a ...

have referred to them also as the Madonna-ology, or Madonnalogy. Another group of academics like

called them the "Madonna Phenomenon" (MP), while others used the term Madonna scholarship. The academic literature about Madonna, and its "own industry", was called as "the Madonna industry", "Madonna business" or the "Madonna boom" by a variety of scholars such as Simon Frith and

Michael Bérubé Michael Bérubé (born 1961) is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Pennsylvania State University, where he teaches American literature, disability studies, and cultural studies. He is the author of several books on cultural studies, di ...

or journalists like

Jon Pareles Jon Pareles (born October 25, 1953) is an American journalist who is the chief popular music critic in the arts section of ''The New York Times''. Critics like

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...

called the "Madonnathinking" (Madonnathink) to commentaries about the singer, including the academic vein.

Origins and development

Background

Literary scholar Luis Cárcamo-Huechante from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

puts the origins of the Madonna studies in the

camp Camp may refer to: Outdoor accommodation and recreation * Campsite or campground, a recreational outdoor sleeping and eating site * a temporary settlement for nomads * Camp, a term used in New England, Northern Ontario and New Brunswick to descri ...

sensibility with the concept proposed in the 1960s by

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay " Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. He ...

, alluding to the "fascination of artifice and exaggeration" and what Madonna produced and put into circulation on an industrial and planetary scale. Associate professor Diane Pecknold in ''American Icons'' (2006) also mentioned the camp sensibility and added that for most of the twentieth century, American scholars subscribed to the idea of an objective and universal canon and academics were applying to Madonna the same sophisticated textual readings. Chilean literary critic Óscar Contardo set its background with the British cultural studies when the phenomenon of celebrities began to be analyzed from the 1970s. American historian Richard Wolin, observed that the cultural studies approach blossomed during the 1980s, further adding that under Foucault's growing influence as well as that Stuart Hall and the Birmingham School, popular culture was viewed as a site of "resistance" to power. It was in this vein that "Madonna studies" blossomed into an academic cottage industry, Wolin said. In ''Madonna: A Biography'' (2007), Mary Cross asserts that "the turmoil of new theory imported from Europe and the culture wars of ideology were bringing huge changes to the American academic world and the college curriculum. Whole departments devoted to popular culture and media studies emerged as well women's studies came into its own. And Madonna seemed to illustrate extremely well what was happening on the embattled cultural ramparts of late twentieth-century American. A perfect example of the whole theory of postmodernism the academic world was suddenly so immersed in". According to professor Santiago Fouz-Hernández, author of ''Madonna's Drowned Worlds'' (2004), the abundance of critical work on the artist has almost certainly been part of broader developments in methodological trends in academia: the study of popular culture has come a long way since

David Riesman David Riesman (September 22, 1909 – May 10, 2002) was an American sociologist, educator, and best-selling commentator on American society. Career Born to a wealthy German Jewish family, he attended Harvard College, where he graduated in 193 ...

described it in 1960 as "a relatively new field in American social science".

Spread

Madonna first came to prominence in the mid-1980s, and the discipline did not take long to start up. ''

D Magazine ''D Magazine'' is a monthly magazine covering Dallas–Fort Worth. It is headquartered in Downtown Dallas. ''D Magazine'' covers a range of topics including politics, business, food, fashion and lifestyle in the city of Dallas. The first ...

'' talked about the Madonna scholarship in 1986. Robert Miklitsch, associate professor of

Ohio University Ohio University is a public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation and subse ...

dates the start of Madonna studies to 1987 and ''Rocking Around The Clock: Music Television, Postmodernism & Consumer Culture'' by

. At this point, scholars like Kaplan and John Fiske represented Madonna to their academic audiences as a moment in which

popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

imitates

critical theories A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from socia ...

of history, knowledge, and human identity. For them, Madonna quickly served "as a vehicle to open up issues", and she was placed at the center of the debate in the

20th century The 20th (twentieth) century began on January 1, 1901 ( MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 ( MM). The 20th century was dominated by significant events that defined the modern era: Spanish flu pandemic, World War I and World War II, nucle ...

high High may refer to: Science and technology * Height * High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area * High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory * High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift t ...

and popular culture. Various academics

cited A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of ...

the point of view of Steven Anderson from ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...

'' (1989): "Madonna serves as the repository for our ideas about fame, money, sex, feminism, pop culture, even death". In numerous ways, Madonna was viewed as a multivalent figure, mainly areas of women's roles where the singer critiques and challenges widespread beliefs while at the same time reinforcing some of them. From other reports, professor

, asked why Madonna and not others acts (he cited Metallica, for instance). In his large explanation, Bérubé said partly because most citizens of advanced Western democracies tend to be more engaged by and informed about Madonna or blockbuster movies. Other author suggested that "pop culture and Madonna are central to political issues", as by this point in the academic rhetoric, Madonna emerges not simply as a pop star but as "the most significant artist of the late twentieth century". Anne Hull summarized that the singer come out as the "intrigue of academics, feminists, theologians, Marxists, sociologists, who want to take her apart and slide her under the microscope". At the end, Pecknold wrote that "the fact that not only her work but her person was open to multiple interpretations contributed to the rise of Madonna studies".

Issues and approaches

The Madonna studies is an

field of

, as well

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...

and

communication studies Communication studies or communication science is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in different ...

. Professors Andy Bennett (Griffith University) and Steve Waksman (Smith College), in the book ''The SAGE Handbook of Popular Music'' (2014) commented that "Madonna studies itself took a variety of forms (and not all of these necessarily counted as cultural studies)". Anne Hull writing for ''

Tampa Bay Times The ''Tampa Bay Times'', previously named the ''St. Petersburg Times'' until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It has won fourteen Pulitzer Prizes since 1964, and in 2009, won two in a single ...

'' described the Madonna studies as "highly specialized" field. Miklitsch called it, a "mini-discipline". For Susan McClary all of these studies on Madonna was from an iconographic perspective, and for author David Chaney, these academic writings are "explicitly concerned with interpreting the fabrication and representational strategies in the star's persona". Professor Pamela Robertson Wojcik of

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main c ...

noticed that "media attention fuels academic discourse, which in turn fuels media discourse, and ultimately all becomes a part of 'Madonna'". In this line, Hull mentioned that everything "is data". In a review from ''Dissertation Abstracts International: The humanities and social sciences. A'' (2008), it was written that the Madonna scholarship focused "solely" on identity politics through formalist readings of cultural texts and their reception to explore the influence of the larger political economic, historical, and cultural contexts of capitalist. Madonna studies explored a wide-ranging of scientific discourses. Cathy Schwichtenberg, a

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

professor and editor of ''The Madonna Connection'', asserts that served as a "touchstone for theoretical discussions" on issues of morality, sexuality, gender relations, gay politics, multiculturalism, feminism, race, racism, pornography, and capitalism to name a few. Authors of ''Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World, Volume 1'' (2011) also added to the spectrum of topics the subcultural appropriation, politics of representation, consumer culture, the male gaze, body modification, reception studies, and postmodernism. As with others observers, music professor Antoni Pizà Prohens also described the kindness of the academic writing discussed on Madonna, describing it as "a long and stretched ''et cetera''". Among those topics, he added, globalization, immigrant rights, minority rights or sexual liberation. Another observer,

Ricardo Baca Ricardo Baca (born ) is an American journalist best known for being the first full-time marijuana rights editor for a major American newspaper. He was an editor at ''The Denver Post'', producing ''The Cannabist'' for over three years until Decem ...

added religion and spectacle. In addition, critic Daniel Harris, provides an overview of the academic reaction and approaches to Madonna studies arguing that "Madonna's work has spawned an entire industry of academic commentary" discussing her impact on music, feminism, sexuality, and dozens of more issues. Her scholars also encompassed a broad spectrum of resources, including Madonna's work as her videos, performances, her music, films, interviews and so on. This usage was also known as a "texts" in the cultural studies branch. In ''Madonna's Drowned Worlds'', authors stated that "this tendency to turn Madonna into a classroom aid becomes most obvious when one examines the basic methods by which her admirers interpret her songs and videos".

Illustrative examples of reference works

Edificio Histórico de la Universidad de Oviedo

The Madonna studies saw its developments mostly at

academic conference An academic conference or scientific conference (also congress, symposium, workshop, or meeting) is an event for researchers (not necessarily academics) to present and discuss their scholarly work. Together with academic or scientific journal ...

journal A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period *Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...

courses Course may refer to: Directions or navigation * Course (navigation), the path of travel * Course (orienteering), a series of control points visited by orienteers during a competition, marked with red/white flags in the terrain, and corresponding ...

seminar A seminar is a form of academic instruction, either at an academic institution or offered by a commercial or professional organization. It has the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some parti ...

theses A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...

and

(including

textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...

s). The first scientific articles about Madonna appeared in 1985, only two years from her debut (1983) and experienced a boost in the early-1990s. According to academic Laurie Ouellette, Madonna scholars "have been leading classroom discussions and filling the pages of academic journals and textbooks since Madonna's early days as the

Material Girl "Material Girl" is a song recorded by American singer Madonna for her second studio album, '' Like a Virgin'' (1984). It was released on November 30, 1984, by the Sire label as the second single from ''Like a Virgin''. It also appears slightly ...

". Simon Frith, refers to this as the "boom in the academic Madonna business": "The books! the articles! the conferences! the courses". Major American universities dedicated classes to the singer across the nation, mostly in the decades of the 1980s and 1990s. Probably more in the US than any other country, there were classes about Madonna. In this regard, Frenchman academic

Georges-Claude Guilbert Georges-Claude Guilbert (born May 18, 1959) is a French literary critic and academic who teaches American literature, gender studies, and popular culture. He is Professor in American Studies at the University of Havre, France. He was one of the e ...

wrote in the book ''Madonna as Postmodern Myth'' (2002),

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nin ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

, the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...

and

Rutgers Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and w ...

were the first to propose courses "about" Madonna. Organizations like the set of liberal arts colleges 7 sisters teach courses that examine the influence of Madonna in culture. Professor Mathew Donahue lectures about Madonna in many of his classes at the Department of Popular Culture (the first Popular Culture department in the United States) of

Bowling Green State University Bowling Green State University (BGSU) is a public research university in Bowling Green, Ohio. The main academic and residential campus is south of Toledo, Ohio. The university has nationally recognized programs and research facilities in the ...

. Worldwide, American editor

Annalee Newitz Annalee Newitz (born May 7, 1969) is an American journalist, editor, and author of both fiction and nonfiction, who has written for the periodicals '' Popular Science'' and ''Wired''. From 1999 to 2008 Newitz wrote a syndicated weekly column ca ...

commented that "Madonna occupies a definite place in the post-

Western Culture Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''. image:Plato Pio-Cle ...

s curriculum at universities everywhere". At the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

in the Netherlands, was created the elective

academic discipline An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

, ''Madonna: The Music and the Phenomenon'', within the Department of

Musicology Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some m ...

. In Finland, Rossi Leena-Maija from ''

Helsingin Sanomat ''Helsingin Sanomat'', abbreviated ''HS'' and colloquially known as , is the largest subscription newspaper in Finland and the Nordic countries, owned by Sanoma. Except after certain holidays, it is published daily. Its name derives from that o ...

'' informed in 1995 that Madonna became part of "Finnish academic life".

Simon Reynolds Simon Reynolds (born 19 June 1963) is an English music journalist and author who began his professional career on the staff of ''Melody Maker'' in the mid-1980s. He has since gone on to freelance and publish a number of full-length books on musi ...

mentioned the example of scholars from

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

, and educator David Buckingham of the

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

campus. In 2015, a group of scholars dedicated a class to Madonna at the University of Oviedo, and marked the first time Oviedo devoted a course to a female singer.

Texts

In ''Material Girls'' (1995),

held these academic writings, has produced at least one major academic text devoted to Madonna. On the report of

Eric Weisbard Eric Weisbard is an American music critic known for founding the Pop Conference, which is hosted annually by the Museum of Pop Culture (formerly known as the EMP Museum). He also organized the conference for many years. Career Weisbard serves ...

, only Madonna books proliferated in the 1990s (compared to her fellows Michael Jackson and Prince), and the bulk coming from a new group of cultural studies academics, mostly women. According to professor

Sheila Jeffreys Sheila Jeffreys (born 13 May 1948) is a former professor of political science at the University of Melbourne, born in England. A lesbian feminist scholar, she analyses the history and politics of human sexuality. Jeffreys' argument that the "s ...

there exists "a slew of scholarly books in postmodern language" about her. Professor Jane Desmond from

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univers ...

held that "the relevant bibliography is vast" in the Madonna studies, citing examples from Cathy Schwichtenberg (''The Madonna Connection'') to Lisa Frank and Paul Smith (''Madonnarama'') both from 1993. Another book from 1993 is ''Deconstructing Madonna'' (Fran Lloyd) that articulates Madonna in British rather than an American cultural perspective. Academics from Thomas Ferraro to Santiago Fouz-Hernández have identified others some core originating texts, like

Karlene Faith Karlene Faith (1938 – 15 May 2017) was a Canadian writer, feminist, scholar, and human rights activist. She was a professor Emeritus, emerita at the Simon Fraser University School of Criminology. Early life and career Karlene Faith was born ...

's ''Madonna, Bawdy & Soul'' (1997) and the others previously mentioned by Desmond. For Fouz-Hernández, ''The Madonna Connection'' "was arguably a key event in the history of the relationship between the artist and the academy". Professor Pamela Robertson Wojcik also opined that the three of these books published in 1993, "cemented the institutionalization of a major subdivision of American media studies into Madonna studies". Weisbard noticed that some bibliography on Madonna mixed music criticism with "academic chops" citing '' Madonna: Like an Icon'' by

Lucy O'Brien Lucy O'Brien (born 13 September 1961)Author Biography, O'Brien, Lucy – She Bop: The definitive history of women in rock, pop, and soul, London: Penguin, 1995 is a British author and journalist whose work focuses on women in music. Early musi ...

as an example. In this hybrid critical-academic popular writing about Madonna, Fouz-Hernández also commented that her academic discourse is "periodically amalgamated in volumes such as ''Desesperately Seeking Madonna'' (Sexton, 1993), ''Madonna: The Rolling Stone Files'' (''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'', 1997) or ''The Madonna Companion'' (Metz and Benson, 1999)". To Ferraro, the last book has been "the better resource for Madonna criticism". ''Bitch She's Madonna'', a book published in 2018 by a group of academics, was promoted as the first Spanish cultural book on Madonna, and as an extension of the Madonna studies in Spain. The same year, assistant professor Manav Ratti of Salisbury University, writing for ''

Journal of American Studies The ''Journal of American Studies'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering international perspectives on the history, literature, politics and culture of the United States. It includes a book review section. Though academic in natu ...

'' wrote an essay about her book '' Sex'' and called it an extension of the "scholarship on Madonna". Some thesis garnered media exposition and

citation A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose o ...

s, like ''Madonna's 'Like a Prayer:' A Critique of a Critique of the Geritol Generation'' of Chip Wells.

Madonna scholars

"Madonna scholars" was the name given to the academics working on Madonna, but other appellative was "Madonnologists". According to French academic

, they worked mostly in areas of

cultural theory Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices r ...

, cultural studies, film, media studies, feminism, gender, gay and lesbianism, generally marked by left wing ideology, radical antiracism, extreme feminism, and lesbian or gay militancy. In 1986, ''

'' staff discovered that "Dallas academics, have been among the nation's leaders in the newly born specialty of Madonna scholarship". In 1992, Barbara Stewart from ''

Orlando Sentinel The ''Orlando Sentinel'' is the primary newspaper of Orlando, Florida, and the Central Florida region. It was founded in 1876 and is currently owned by Tribune Publishing Company. The ''Orlando Sentinel'' is owned by parent company, '' Tribune P ...

'' reported a "growing number of Madonna scholars" in the United States from professors of English, anthropology or communication. One of the earliest studiers of Madonna identified as "Madonna scholars" was John Fiske.

Opprobrium

Madonna scholars also received criticisms from both academy and mainstream media and some deemed them as a "marginal group". Ouellette traced the height of this criticism with the academic compendium ''The Madonna Connection'' "that such scholars became a fashionable target for "concern, condescension, and scorn from progressive quarters". By this point, whole articles dedicated to them was found in publications from ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...

'' to ''

Inside Edition ''Inside Edition'' is an American news broadcasting newsmagazine program that is distributed in first-run syndication by CBS Media Ventures. Having premiered on January 9, 1989, it is the longest-running syndicated-newsmagazine program that is no ...

'' and ''

Herald Tribune ''Herald'' or ''The Herald'' is the name of various newspapers. ''Herald'' or ''The Herald'' Australia * ''The Herald'' (Adelaide) and several similar names (1894–1924), a South Australian Labor weekly, then daily * '' Barossa and Light Heral ...

''. A concern was that "these professors make Madonna the academic equivalent of

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

". On the border of academic and public intellectual writing,

bell hooks Gloria Jean Watkins (September 25, 1952December 15, 2021), better known by her pen name bell hooks, was an American author and social activist who was Distinguished Professor in Residence at Berea College. She is best known for her writings on ...

remained Madonna's most persuasive detractor. Anne Hull ironically said: "A handful of renegade scholars—students and professors—are studying Madonna. While their colleagues explore gender conflicts in Florentine history or Aristotelian metaphysics, they search for higher meaning in Madonna". Hull further notes, "as one might imagine, Madonna scholars are a lonely posse in the high-brow, horn-rimmed world of academics". Spanish sociologist Enrique Gil Calvo from

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid ( es, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; UCM, links=no, ''Universidad de Madrid'', ''Universidad Central de Madrid''; la, Universitas Complutensis Matritensis, links=no) is a public research university loc ...

felt that "what scholars want is to take advantage of Madonna's fame". For Ouellette, "Madonna scholars are not so much interested in Madonna herself, but in the way they believe she shakes up traditional social roles and power hierarchies". Harris also expressed that "her academic admirers spend a great deal of time studying how she embodies the fantasies of other people; they devote remarkably little time, however, to discussing how she embodies their own". Psychologist Abigail J. Stewart asked why many of her academic critics have chosen to look only at her triumphs and not at her pain. Stewart goes on to suggest that her academics have made of Madonna, a "solo generator of her image". But she problematizes that "these postmodernist have thus contributed at least as much as Madonna's biographers to her self-generated myth that she as individual is in control" citing Susan McClary whom claimed that Madonna is "solely responsible for creating her music, which is no the case eve for the two songs McClary analyzes". In this vein, numerous academics and feminists were accused of "enacting the wannabe syndrome of Madonna fans" according to Carla Freccero writing for

Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...

. Unlike Stewart, Guilbert found that some "Madonnologists", "even seek to appropriate the Madonna text in order to serve an ideology, and reproach Madonna for her failures to promote this or that cause".

Defenses

As most of Madonna studiers were women, they managed to agree they were the subject of gender bias in academia. As they explained that these "derogatory criticisms" used by male reviewers were the same to describe Madonna that to describe them. At first instance, Laurie Schulze of

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private research university in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1864, it is the oldest independent private university in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Univ ...

decries: "We're being treated as the '

slut ''Slut (archaic: slattern)'' is an English-language term for a person, usually a woman or girl, who is considered to have loose sexual morals or who is sexually promiscuous. It is usually used as an insult, sexual slur or offensive term of d ...

s' of academia, in ways weirdly analogous to how Madonna herself is viewed". Furthermore, Schwichtenberg opined that "Madonna probably thinks we're stuffy people. But we don't think she'd say this isn't true".

, one of the precursors in the Madonna studies, was surprised and troubled in the backlash against Madonna scholars—which she felt is quite conservative—and said that emerged from a journal on the left. Kaplan believed it relates to the backlash against feminism at that time. As she asserted: "Madonna is a woman who has entered the public sphere as an entrepreneur earning a lot of money, something that is not considered natural for women. Sexually, she can be quite threatening for men ..and this has made her a complicated, and highly contested phenomenon" while male music performers such as Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Prince "have gotten away" exploring that. Chip Wells, another Madonna scholar that received attention from media, responded to critics from ''Inside Edition'' whom taped him saying: "I've read

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

, Descartes. And I'm not finding anything in them I'm not finding in Madonna". In defense, Wells commented "it's not hard to make us look dumb" adding that "what ''Inside Edition'' doesn't know is, Roman Hellenism was the pop culture of its time". At one moment, the network of Madonna scholars was described as "a tight unit". In this matters, Wells commented "by the nature of the area we are studying, we have to coalesce". However, others viewed this inter-exchanges, as "who swap bibliographies like 13-year-old girls trade earrings". In response to the charges of fan-biased analysis, Lisa Henderson, an assistant professor said that "one can be a fan and a scholar, they enhance each other". Schulze, later dedicated an inspired-article for ''

The Velvet Light Trap ''The Velvet Light Trap'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering film and media studies. It is edited by graduate students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Texas at Austin. Each issue covers critical, theore ...

'' in 1999 where chronicles the controversy surrounding the Madonna studies and the tag they received as "Madonna's academic wannabes" by left-leaning popular press.

Reception

The Madonna studies divided the academic world. In this line, Spanish sociologist

María Ángeles Durán María Ángeles Durán Heras (born 30 November 1942) is a Spanish sociologist best known for being a pioneer in research on unpaid work, the social situation of women and their social and work environment, health economics, and inequality in the ...

held that Madonna has been the subject of numerous and diverse studies but "provoking a great controversy of opinions". Charles T. Banner-Haley, a professor of history at

Colgate University Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York. The college was founded in 1819 as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York and operated under that name until 1823, when it was renamed Hamilton Theolog ...

also confirmed this, saying that "the academic world the force of Madonna has caused a division among scholars that has often gone from the sublime to the silly". For

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, ...

it's a "controversial" area. For cultural critics on both the left and right, Madonna studies represented "the first and last word of barbarism", political barbarism for the left, cultural for the right. The subject, Madonna, at the height of this debate was presented as a "talentless opportunist" or "a monster created by the publicity machine" by mainstream instructors, while academics in a

populist Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term develop ...

view interpreted the singer as a "nothing less than a grass-roots revolutionary". As a topic of wide media interest, the

Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (International Repertory of Music Literature; Internationales Repertorium der Musikliteratur), commonly known by its acronym RILM, is a nonprofit organization that offers digital collections and a ...

observed the reception in the popular press noting "the ridicule that Madonna studies has provoked among journalists". Also, given the fact that Madonna's work only occupied consciousness for a mere years during the rise of this branch (1990s, and she debuted in 1983), Elizabeth Tippens of ''

'' in 1990, asked "it may be fair to ask, is it art yet? Do we wait another fifty years before we dare to deconstruct Madonna? To ask what she is teaching us about ourselves and our culture?". Another premier example of whole articles devoted to the branch from media, include the firm ''

Knight Ridder Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by McClatchy on June 27, 2006, it was the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspaper bra ...

'', as they published a 1991 article on the subject titled "Madonna even controversial for scholars", citing comments from several teachers and other personalities. Professor Robert Miklitsch described the branch as a "political-cultural" phenomenon. Indeed, two "political" positions in particular were frequently attached to Madonna studies: pro-choice, and safe sex campaigns which encourage the use of condoms.

Madonna's responses

In 1994,

Jon Pareles Jon Pareles (born October 25, 1953) is an American journalist who is the chief popular music critic in the arts section of ''The New York Times''.The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' asked Madonna's thoughts about the academic discipline, and she answered "It's flattering because obviously I'm on a lot of people's minds". Years prior, in an interview with ''Vanity Fair'' according to

Gary Goshgarian Gary Goshgarian, better known by his pen name Gary Braver, is the author of nine thrillers and mysteries. Goshgarian is an assistant professor of English at Northeastern University in Boston. He has taught fiction-writing workshops throughout the ...

, she gave a similar answer: "It's flattering to me that people take the time to analyze me and that I've so infiltrated their psyches that they have to intellectualize my very being. I'd rather be on their minds than off". Madonna was quoted by scholar Frances Negrón-Muntaner saying: "Imagine for a second that you are Madonna... Imagine, that there are theory books about you, and that you are the main theme of dissertations and academic essays. Imagine that feminists discuss whether you are a heroine or a demon".

Criticisms

The Madonna studies generated a great amount of criticisms among scholars and others commentators. Internationally, it also raised disapproval and an editor commented that "was a laugh hear of Madonna studies" for many overseas. The charges against the studies were similar in many ways. Stephen Brown from

University of Ulster sco, Ulstèr Universitie , image = Ulster University coat of arms.png , caption = , motto_lang = , mottoeng = , latin_name = Universitas Ulidiae , established = 1865 – Magee College 1953 - Magee Un ...

commented that "when you read some of the stuff that academics have written about Madonna, then you're inclined to conclude that certain scholars should get out more". The field was criticized because tends "to be

jargon Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a partic ...

laden and prone to over-interpretation". A denunciation of the branch and its feminist and gay exponents in cultural studies, rails against "a state of intellectual anarchy that sanctions willfully perverse misreadings".

Camille Paglia Camille Anna Paglia (; born April 2, 1947) is an American feminist academic and social critic. Paglia has been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1984. She is critical of many aspects of modern cultu ...

, called them as a "pretentious terminology" citing examples of words like "intertextual", "significations", "transgressive", "subversive" or "self-representation". She decries: "This would be comical, except for its ill effect on students and an increasingly corrupt career system".

believes so much of the academic writing on Madonna ''feels'' translated. He also noticed that the "Madonnathinking" contrasted of her "overanalyzed" and "overstuffed" videos with her "underanalyzed" pop songs. Similar to Christgau, authors of ''Media and Cultural Theory'' (2010) found that the problem with Madonna studies from the perspective of Musicology is that "very little analysis is focused on the musical text but rather performances and promotional video". In this area, observer Andrew Blake provides a "musicological" critique, and also mentioned that cultural studies has a "problem" with music. From an educational sense, some reviewers debated about whether Madonna should have a place in curriculums alongside more established and canonical subjects, while argued that she was an "unworthy of academic study" that "adds nothing to the advancement of knowledge". Various commentators described it as "a waste of time and money" for both professors and students. It has also been criticised for adding nothing to students' employment prospects. Another critic said that "neither this study theme sit well with some students of higher education".

Roger Kimball Roger Kimball (born 1953) is an American art critic and conservative social commentator. He is the editor and publisher of ''The New Criterion'' and the publisher of Encounter Books. Kimball first gained notice in the early 1990s with the public ...

, charged Madonna's presence in the classroom with nothing short of "defrauding students of a liberal-arts education". Ironically, Paglia (one of the earliest Madonna commentators) at that time said: "We do not need a ''whole course'' in Madonna". Instructors like Robert Walser found that "students" reacted skeptical when it comes to Madonna, because "they haven't thought about in certain ways" and "they've trained not to image that there could be anything important going in popular culture, especially in popular culture produced by women". Many years after, Kathryn Murphy-Judy, an associate professor of French at

Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university in Richmond, Virginia. VCU was founded in 1838 as the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, becoming the Medical College of Virginia in 1854. In 1968, the Virginia ...

found the problem of outdated textbooks. In the late-1990s, Australian feminist historian Barbara Caine dismissed the field saying: "While not advocating more Madonna studies (now considerably dated), nor defending them as either scholarly or political, I want to suggest that such studies of girl culture are important". In a similar treatment, American art historian Douglas Crimp said: "My hesitancy to participate in the Madonna studies phenomenon is that I generally think and write about things that really do matter to me, and Madonna doesn't matter to me that much". Robert Clay, a

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

English professor called them an "Old Hat".

Advocacy and counter-responses

Numerous academics, mainly Madonna studiers have defended the field. One of these justification was the importance of studying

modern culture Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the "Age of R ...

. Charles Sykes, of ''

Milwaukee Magazine ''Milwaukee Magazine'' is a monthly city magazine serving the Milwaukee metropolitan area in Wisconsin, United States. It bills itself as "Southeastern Wisconsin's most authoritative source for Events and Dining," and reports a readership of ...

'' said that "there's no subject too ridiculous to be a subject of research in academics". Professor Thomas Ferraro at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist Jam ...

described the field as "quite academic in focus, language, and ideology". In 1997, in a conversation with ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', Matt Wray asserted at that time the field is "past its prime now", but added respectfully, "a lot of good work was done on the significance of Madonna". In the height of this debate, Jesse Nash, an anthropology professor at Loyola University, said, "it's more conventional to write Madonna off, to write popular culture off. But that's a big mistake. A whole generation is forming opinions based on her". To defenders like Schwichtenberg, "Madonna is a figure that is very important to subcultural groups ..To say she doesn't deserve to be studied is very condescending to a lot of people". Also, historian

Marilyn B. Young Marilyn B. Young (April 25, 1937 – February 19, 2017) was a historian of American foreign relations and professor of history at New York University. She graduated from Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn in 1953 and Vassar College in 195 ...

reminded that "pop culture has long been studied in universities" and "Madonna's impact is serious". Nash goes on to suggest that a figure like Madonna is "key to understanding the times in which they live and, by contrast, other eras". Comparisons with

historical figure A historical figure is a significant person in history. The significance of such figures in human progress has been debated. Some think they play a crucial role, while others say they have little impact on the broad currents of thought and social ...

s and of previous eras was a constant. At first instance, some scholars say Madonna "is worthy of inquiry odayas

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

was in the 18th century". Lisa Henderson, an assistant professor pondered that "a dissertation on Shakespeare might have been as laughable 300 years ago as a dissertation on Madonna might be today". Young also felt that to the generation coming up, "Madonna is more important than

Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...

". Harvard University's Lynne Layton, also commented: "Teaching students how to read popular culture critically is as important as teaching them to read high art". Contrary to some student's concerns, Gary Burns and Elizabeth Kizer in ''Madonna: Like a Dichotomy'' (1990) found that "students in communication classes find it useful to study Madonna because she is a fascinating and prolific cultural figure". In a class devoted to Madonna in 2008, economist and academic Robert M. Grant commented that the "familiarity with Madonna means that it is possible for everyone to contribute to the discussion". In regards the criticisms to the field and its authors, Ouellette suggested that "if critics had not been so hostile from the start, and had not spent so much time making scholarly work on Madonna seem ridiculous out of context, they might have been more fair in noting that the essays collected in the ''Madonna Collection'', for instance, are nowhere near uniform celebrations of Madonna as a feminist or even populist idol".

Ambivalences

In the eyes of various observers, the Madonna studies has generated unexpected effects. At first instance and according to investigative journalist Ethan Brown, the Madonna studies "has obscured what made its subject so appealing in the first place (Madonna)" and blamed to Camilla Plagia to university semiotics departments. Following Brown's description, at the beginning of the 21st century, the flood of Madonna theories subsided for the first time. An author suggested that "a degree of saturation seems to have been reached". Professor Jim McGuigan of

Loughborough University Loughborough University (abbreviated as ''Lough'' or ''Lboro'' for post-nominals) is a public research university in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It has been a university since 1966, but it dates back to 1909, when ...

pointed out that in the cultural studies the case of Madonna has been so "overworked" that it has reached tedium, as happened in the old schools with the historical problem on the

Causes of World War I The identification of the causes of World War I remains controversial. World War I began in the Balkans on July 28, 1914, and hostilities ended on November 11, 1918, leaving 17 million dead and 25 million wounded. Moreover, the Russian Civil ...

. More than one author suggested that Madonna studies is really not about Madonna, and it was motivated by professional factors within the academy; specifically, by many academics' desire to prove their social relevance. By this time, the growth of the Madonna Phenomenon (MP) reflected changes that were occurring in the perception of popular art, not only among academics but among mainstream pop critics as well. By this point, the MP was viewed as "the ultimate act of

cultural imperialism Cultural imperialism (sometimes referred to as cultural colonialism) comprises the cultural dimensions of imperialism. The word "imperialism" often describes practices in which a social entity engages culture (including language, traditions, ...

CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the '' CBS Evening News'', '' CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 4 ...

president

Fred W. Friendly Fred W. Friendly (born Ferdinand Friendly Wachenheimer, October 30, 1915 – March 3, 1998) was a president of CBS News and the creator, along with Edward R. Murrow, of the documentary television program ''See It Now''. He originated the concept ...

was critical about the Madonna studies, but also suggested that "writing a major paper is supposed to be an intellectual achievement—a serious matter. Madonna is a media freak. How the media made her—I could see studying that". Another group have defended Madonna's own ambivalences in the perspective of academic writing, while Kaplan proposed that "she is nevertheless a contradictory and complex cultural phenomenon that cannot be simply dismissed". Like Kaplan, scholar

Douglas Kellner Douglas Kellner (born May 31, 1943) is an American academic who works at the intersection of "third-generation" critical theory in the tradition of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, or Frankfurt School, and in cultural studies in the ...

agreed with this point, adding:

Comparisons

The field has been analogously used both to defend or criticize other academic trends, and subfields, mostly from the post-Madonna studies era. Danish professor Erik Steinskog, used the field to defend the courses proposed for

Beyoncé Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Beyoncé's boundary-pushing artistry and vocals have made her the most influential female musician of the 21st century, according to ...

. Historian professor David Roediger, noticed that in November 1997, ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

'' ridiculed whiteness studies and name it the silly successor to

porn studies ''Porn Studies'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the study of pornography. It is published by Routledge and was established in 2014. The editors-in-chief are Feona Attwood (Middlesex University), John Mercer (Birmingham City ...

and Madonna studies. He also, pointed out: "The idea of studying the popularity of Madonna has been grist for the mills of many critics of trends in scholarship on American culture. No writer has more precisely described what is at stake in such studies than bell hooks". Back in the 2000s,

explained the related-critics and comparisons, saying that "as long as cultural studies is taken to be identical to Madonna Studies, the critiques of cultural studies follow an altogether predictable path". Writing for ''

The Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to re ...

'', Bérubé noticed that since the importation of cultural studies to the United States, the field "has basically turned into a branch of pop-culture criticism". In this vein, Stuart Hall, one of the most influential authors in the cultural studies, commented: "I really cannot read another cultural-studies analysis of Madonna or ''

The Sopranos ''The Sopranos'' is an American crime drama television series created by David Chase. The story revolves around Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster, portraying his difficulties as he tries to balance ...

''". According to American writer

Julia Keller Julia Keller is an American writer and former journalist. Her awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. Life Keller was born in Huntington, West Virginia and lived there throughout her early life. Her father was a mathematics profes ...

: "Madonna Studies 101 s thederisive nickname sometimes applied to cultural studies". In ''Vamps & Tramps: New Essays'' (2011), Camille Paglia notated that the "current academic writing on Madonna" and indeed on American popular culture in general is of "deplorably low quality". It is marked by "inaccuracy, bathos, overinterpretation, overpoliticization and grotesquely inappropriate jargon borrowed from pseudotechnical semiotics and moribund French theory". Authors in ''Evaluating Creativity: Making and Learning by Young People'' (2000), commented that "whatever one's position on the Madonna debate, she stands as an image for a more general anxiety in the study of culture, and this respect the overall effect of postmodernism has been to unsettle criteria for evaluation in the arts in two ways: the neo-conservative backlash and cultural relativism".

Legacy

In ''Materialisations of a Woman Writer'' (2006), Swedish author Maria Wikse from

Stockholm University Stockholm University ( sv, Stockholms universitet) is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, ...

observed that "Madonna is no longer in the academic limelight", but stated that "Madonna Studies remains an established field within Cultural Studies". Authors of ''Religion and Popular Culture: Rescripting the Sacred'' (2008), commented that "despite the (perhaps misguided)" mocking of the Madonna studies wave, "the period produced some important and groundbreaking work in cultural studies that focused on the music, videos ndfilms". For associate professor Diane Pecknold, the Madonna studies "heralded and hastened the development of American cultural studies". Dutch media scholar Jaap Kooijman, commented that before the Madonna studies, "most scholarly attention was paid to genres and artists that were not considered 'pop'", but she brought 'pop' to the foreground. On a broader scale, "courses offered at such universities as Harvard, Princeton, UCLA and the University of Colorado have been put forth on the premise that celebrities have social significance and are therefore important topics of study". Even, British author

Emma Brockes Emma Brockes (born 1975) is a British author and a contributor to ''The Guardian'' and ''The New York Times''. She lives in New York. Biography The daughter of a South-African-born mother,Emma Brockes"My mother's secret past" extract from ''She ...

called the "post-Madonna" studies era to those degree courses of cultural studies held by best universities, like when Harvard pioneered a study on the singer back in the early 1990s. In ''Madonna's drowned worlds'' (2004), authors notated that "academic studies and college courses dealing with Madonna's work benefited from the aura of her celebrity through the mid-1990s". In the early 1990s, by the way,

pointed out that "perhaps it's not surprising that even academics are doing a brisk trade in Madonna-ology". And despite the negative comments, her scholars garnered several benefits, as they appeared on talk shows, gracing a score of national and international newspapers and magazines. Schwichtenberg, even asserts that "writing ''about'' Madonna and her cultural significance had produced connections with others outside academe that dissolved the boundaries between public and private, academic and popular, theory and practice". In 2001, Andrew Morton informed: "All those college lecturers endlessly debating her impact on racial and gender relations in post-modern society, are still, after twenty years, desperately seeking Madonna".

Impact on Madonna's career

As Madonna's influence on academic scholarship has not gone unnoticed, educator David Buckingham deemed it as "a meteoric rise to academic

". According to Mary Cross, she become an "exalted star on the unlikely stage of academia". In the height of her academic attention, the 1990s, professor

Gregory Ulmer Gregory Leland Ulmer (born December 23, 1944) is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Florida ( Gainesville) and a professor of Electronic Languages and Cybermedia at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. ...

deemed her as "the most studied pop figure in universities". Elizabeth Tippens from ''Rolling Stone'' commented in 1992, that "no female pop-music figure has ever infiltrated the halls of academia as Madonna has". Andreas Häger from Åbo Akademi University cited Schwichtenberg: "Hardly any other popular artist has received as much attention from the

scientific community The scientific community is a diverse network of interacting scientists. It includes many " sub-communities" working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional activities are als ...

as Madonna". Madonna's semiotic and significance was dissected by her pundits each of whom had their own take on her role in society from all-topics discussed. In regard this, Daniel Harris of ''The Nation'' (1992) held that "there is a Madonna for virtually every theoretical stripe". He extended this idea citing the " Lacanian Madonna" in

Marjorie Garber Marjorie Garber (born June 11, 1944) is an American professor at Harvard University and the author of a wide variety of books, most notably ones about William Shakespeare and aspects of popular culture including sexuality. Biography She wrote '' ...

's review, the " Foucauldian Madonna" in Charles Wells's view, the " Baudrillardian Madonna" for Cathy Schwichtenberg, followed by the " Freudian Madonna" of

Cindy Patton Cindy Patton (born February 12, 1956) is an American sociologist and historian specializing in the history of the AIDS epidemic. A former faculty member at Temple University and Emory University, she currently teaches at Simon Fraser University, ...

and the " Marxist Madonna" by associate professor Melanie Morton. Others authors such as Colombian writer José Yunis and Caroline von Lowtzow from ''

Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of SZ is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and social-democrat. Hist ...

'' have reprinted Harri's point of view. The latter author, also added that this even prompted a parody of these multiple interpretations: a "

Postmodernism Generator The Postmodernism Generator is a computer program that automatically produces "close imitations" of postmodernist writing. It was written in 1996 by Andrew C. Bulhak of Monash University using the Dada Engine, a system for generating random t ...

". Lola Galán from ''

El País ''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El Pa ...

'' noticed this point as well and mentioned those philosophers and writer "invoked" to discuss the "Madonna phenomenon" such as

Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aest ...

. In this vein, Chilean literary critic Óscar Contardo suggested that the academic publications that had the singer as their focus, multiplied, breaking down the semiotics of "her image, her music, her media appearances, her staging, and her implicit and explicit messages". The critical studies of Madonna reveal her as a symbol, image, and brand to be a critical nexus for the exploration of contemporary attitudes.

Measurement of Madonna's academic literature

Across the decades, a group of critics have commented and "measured" the literature about her in the academic world. Author David Chaney commented that she "has generated an enormous academic and popular literature of explanation and comment". Professor Pamela Robertson Wojcik cited that "Madonna is as ubiquitous in academic discourse as she is in the popular media". José F. Blanco writing for the academic journal, ''

The Journal of Popular Culture ''The Journal of Popular Culture'' (''JPC'') is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes academic essays on all aspects of popular or mass culture. It is published six times a year, printed by Wiley-Blackwell. As of Summer 2022, the editor ...

'' in 2015, stated that "it can be argued that Madonna is overexposed in

academic research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...

". A similar suggestion was made by Fouz-Hernández in ''Madonna's drowned worlds'' (2004), recalling that "scholarly interest has since continued unabated". Australian historians

Robert Aldrich Robert Burgess Aldrich (August 9, 1918 – December 5, 1983) was an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. His notable credits include '' Vera Cruz'' (1954), '' Kiss Me Deadly'' (1955), '' The Big Knife'' (1955), '' Autumn ...

and Garry Wotherspoon called Madonna a "performer of inimitable ubiquity" as she "has saturated the pages of academic journals". In ''Fashion and Celebrity Culture'' (2013), Pamela Church Gibson wrote "since the 1980s, there has surely been enough written about Madonna to create a whole new sub-discipline within cultural studies". In ''Gender and Popular Culture'' (2013), authors described Madonna as "a female performer who has provoked a great deal of response from cultural critics and academics" and "her presence has sparked a wealth of academic debate".

Alina Simone Alina Simone (born Alina Vilenkin) is an American musician and writer. She is best known for her original songwriting, her album of cover songs by Russian punk poet Yanka Dyagileva, and her collection of autobiographical essays ''You Must Go And W ...

, author of ''

Madonnaland ''Madonnaland: And Other Detours in Fame and Fandom'' is a non-fiction book written by American essayist and musician Alina Simone. It is a biography of American singer Madonna, as well the author's own analysis of music and pop culture. Upon i ...

'' (2016), commented while she was working in her book: "I maintained hope of finding some tiny stone left unturned in the giant gravel pit of Madonna studies", but she encontered "there is no dearth of material about Madonna, but an overwhelming excess".

Notes

1. To avoid

intertextuality Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text, either through deliberate compositional strategies such as quotation, allusion, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche or parody, Gerard Genette (1997) ''Paratexts'p.18/ref>Hal ...

cases, most texts have author's quote attribution.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * {{Madonna

Studies Study or studies may refer to: General * Education ** Higher education * Clinical trial * Experiment * Observational study * Research * Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning Other * Study (art), a drawing or series of d ...

Media studies Cultural studies Academic scandals