Madonna Studies was a term which has been used to refer to a controversial development of a field in media studies during the 1990s. One writer described the "institutionalization of a major subdivision of American media studies into Madonna studies". The field related to the study of and interpretation of the work of American pop musician Madonna using an interdisciplinary approach incorporating cultural studies and media studies. A notable compendium of essays titled The Madonna Connection was published in 1993. Controversy over this field of study stemmed from discussions over the intellectual worth of pursuing academic inquiry into a pop musician, with some arguing the field was nothing more than pop cultural commentary.
Famous quotes containing the words madonna and/or studies:
“In our minds lives the madonna image—the all-embracing, all- giving tranquil mother of a Raphael painting, one child at her breast, another at her feet; a woman fulfilled, one who asks nothing more than to nurture and nourish. This creature of fantasy, this myth, is the model—the unattainable ideal against which women measure, not only their performance, but their feelings about being mothers.”
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)
“You must train the children to their studies in a playful manner, and without any air of constraint, with the further object of discerning more readily the natural bent of their respective characters.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)