Madonna studies (also variously called Madonna scholarship, Madonna-ology, the Madonna phenomenon, and Madonnathinking) refers to the academic study of the work and life of the American singer-songwriter Madonna. The terms refer to any such studies, but in particular to those using an interdisciplinary approach incorporating cultural and media studies in a postmodern approach that began in the mid-1980s. Authors of these studies are sometimes called "Madonna scholars" or "Madonnologists"; E. Ann Kaplan and John Fiske are early examples. After Madonna's debut in 1983 and quick rise to stardom, the practice soon appeared, achieving its peak in the next decade. The academic attention has continued since.
These studies have especially treated of gender, feminism, race, multiculturalism, sexuality, and the mass media on the basis of Madonna's songs, videos, live performances, films, books, and interviews. The scholarship has stimulated increased academic examination of pop music and its performers and more broadly of popular entertainment, shaping American cultural studies, although public authorities such as the National Geographic Society have deemed it controversial. One early scholar of Madonna studies, the feminist writer Camille Paglia, criticized the field (along with popular culture studies more broadly) for its perceived "ill effect on students and an increasingly corrupt career system" in academia.
Terminology The field is commonly called Madonna studies, a phrase that appeared in the late 1980s, according to the writer Maura Johnston. Although some academics (such as David Gauntlett) called it that, others (including Janice Radway, Suzanna Danuta Walters, and Maureen Orth) instead called it Madonna-ology (or Madonnaology), others yet called it Madonna scholarship, another (E. Ann Kaplan) called it the Madonna Phenomenon, and some critics (such as Robert Christgau) called it Madonnathinking (or Madonnathink).
The wealth of academic scrutiny of Madonna and her influence created what some journalists and scholars (including Simon Frith, Michael Bérubé and Jon Pareles) disdainfully labeled the "Madonna industry," "Madonna business," and "Madonna boom."
Origins and development Background Chilean literary critic places the Madonna studies in the context of 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 expanded during the 1980s, adding that under the influence of Michel Foucault, as well as Stuart Hall and the Birmingham School, popular culture came to be viewed as a site of "resistance to power". It was in this context, Wolin argues, that the "Madonna studies" developed into an academic cottage industry.
In Madonna: A Biography (2007), Mary Cross argues 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". She notes that whole departments devoted to popular culture, women's studies and media studies emerged, and suggested that Madonna seemed to "illustrate extremely" well what was happening on the "embattled cultural ramparts" of late twentieth-century American, describing her as a "perfect example of the whole theory of postmodernism the academic world was suddenly so immersed in". Daniel Harries from The Nation similarly observed in 1992, that reflections of contemporary attitudes were occurring in the perception of popular art, not only among academics but also among mainstream pop critics.
In addition, literary scholar Luis Cárcamo-Huechante from Harvard University traces the origins of the Madonna studies to the camp sensibility associated with Susan Sontag's 1960s works referring to a "fascination of artifice and exaggeration", and what he perceives Madonna illustrated well. Associate professor Diane Pecknold in American Icons (2006) also discusses the camp sensibility adding 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".
Spread D Magazine talked about the Madonna scholarship in 1986. Robert Miklitsch, associate professor of Ohio University dates the start of Madonna studies to 1987 and Rocking Around The Clock: Music Television, Postmodernism & Consumer Culture by E. Ann Kaplan. According to Jon Pareles of The New York Times, Madonna was deemed "as a vehicle to open up issues". Pecknold also observed that her person was open to multiple interpretations, contributing to the rise of the Madonna studies.
Scholars such as E. Ann Kaplan and John Fiske represented Madonna to their academic audiences as an example of how popular culture can imitates critical theories of history, knowledge, and human identity, according to Annalee Newitz. "Of all the artists who rose to prominence through MTV, none has garnered more attention among academics than Madonna", wrote Murray Steib in Reader's Guide to Music (2013). Professor Michael Bérubé, analyzed the preference for Madonna rather than other act (such as Metallica) by academics, and argued in part, that this was possible because citizens of advanced Western democracies tend to be more engaged by and informed about figures like Madonna or by blockbuster films. An author suggested that "pop culture and Madonna are central to political issues", while, Harris from The Nation observed in 1992, that Madonna had come to be regarded in their academic discourses not simply as a pop star, but as "the most significant artist of the late twentieth century".
Academic Laurie Ouellette and Simon Frith noted the development of Madonna studies through courses, classroom discussions, academic journals, textbooks or conferences. French scholar Georges-Claude Guilbert writes in Madonna as Postmodern Myth (2002) that Princeton, Harvard, UCLA, the University of Colorado and Rutgers were among the first to offer courses about her. A magazine reported in 2012 that liberal arts colleges, such as the 7 sisters institutions, have taught courses on her cultural influence.
Outside the U.S., in the early 1990s, American editor Newitz stated that "Madonna occupies a definite place in the post-Western Cultures curriculum at universities everywhere". The University of Amsterdam created the elective academic discipline, Madonna: The Music and the Phenomenon, within the Department of Musicology. In Finland, Rossi Leena-Maija of Helsingin Sanomat reported in 1995 that Madonna had become part of the "Finnish academic life". In 2015, scholars at the University of Oviedo offered a Madonna course, marking the first time the university had devoted a course to a female singer.
Issues and approaches The Madonna studies is an interdisciplinary field of cultural studies, as well media and communication studies. Professors Andy Bennett (Griffith University) and Steve Waksman (Smith College), in the book The Sage Handbook of Popular Music (2014) commented that the "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 described the Madonna studies as a "highly specialized" field. Miklitsch called it a "mini-discipline".
The Madonna studies explored a broad range of academic discourses, on the basis of her work such as videos, films, videos and live performances. This usage was known as "texts" in the cultural studies as observed Margo Hammond from Tampa Bay Times. Cathy Schwichtenberg, a University of Georgia professor and editor of The Madonna Connection (1993), described the field as a "touchstone for theoretical discussions", and included issues such as morality, sexuality, gender relations, and gay politics to name a few. The scholarship has variously addressed other topics such as consumer culture, reception studies, globalization, and performance, as noted Antoni Pizà Prohens, authors of Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World, Volume 1 (2011), and Ricardo Baca.
Susan McClary described scholarly approaches to Madonna as stemming from an iconographic perspective. Meanwhile, author David Chaney wrote that academic writings on Madonna were "explicitly concerned with interpreting the fabrication and representational strategies in the star's persona". A review of Dissertation Abstracts International: The humanities and social sciences. A (2008), stated 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 society". On the other hand, professor Pamela Robertson Wojcik of University of Notre Dame observes that "media attention fuels academic discourse, which in turn fuels media discourse, and ultimately all becomes a part of 'Madonna'". In this context, Hull argues that everything became "data" to scholars.
Bibliography According to Caroline von Lowtzow from Süddeutsche Zeitung, the first scholarly works on Madonna appeared in 1985, and the field experienced a publishing boom in the early 1990s. In Material Girls (1995), Suzanna Danuta Walters held these academic writings, "has produced at least one major academic text devoted to Madonna". According to professor Sheila Jeffreys there exists "a slew of scholarly books in postmodern language" about her.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor Jane Desmond has argued that "the relevant bibliography is vast" in the Madonna studies, citing works ranging from Cathy Schwichtenberg's The Madonna Connection to Lisa Frank and Paul Smith's Madonnarama both published in 1993. Another 1993 publication, Deconstructing Madonna (Fran Lloyd) situates Madonna within a British rather than an American cultural perspective. Scholars including Thomas Ferraro and Santiago Fouz-Hernández have identified additional foundational texts, such as Karlene Faith's Madonna, Bawdy & Soul (1997) and the works previously cited by Desmond. Fouz-Hernández describes The Madonna Connection arguably a "key event" in the history of the relationship between Madonna and the academy. Professor Pamela Robertson Wojcik has similarly argued that the three books published in 1993, "cemented the institutionalization of a major subdivision of American media studies into Madonna studies".
In addition, Weisbard noted that some of her bibliographies often combine music criticism with "academic chops" citing Madonna: Like an Icon (2007) by Lucy O'Brien as an example. Fouz-Hernández observed that academic discourses on Madonna were periodically amalgamated in volumes such as Desperately Seeking Madonna (Sexton, 1993), Madonna: The Rolling Stone Files (Rolling Stone, 1997) or The Madonna Companion (Metz and Benson, 1999)". Ferraro describes the latter book as "the better resource for Madonna criticism". Bitch She's Madonna (2018), written by Hispanic academics was promoted as the first Spanish–language cultural study book dedicated to Madonna, and as an extension of the Madonna studies in Spain. Assistant professor Manav Ratti of Salisbury University, writing for Journal of American Studies in 2018, discussed Madonna's Sex book and called it as an extension of "scholarship on Madonna".
Madonna scholars "Madonna scholars" and "Madonnologists" are the term commonly used to describe academics who study Madonna. One of the earliest academics to be referred to as a "Madonna scholar" was John Fiske. According to some publications, many of the Madonna scholars came from left-wing ideological perspectives, including LGBT-related political movements, radical antiracism and feminism perspectives.