Home

Dr Christopher Wiley publishes book chapter on Michael Jackson

18 December 2012

Christopher Wiley Media, Publication, Research , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Michael Jackson Grasping the SpectacleAn interdisciplinary volume of essays on Michael Jackson published earlier this year, Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle, includes a chapter on musicology written by Dr Christopher Wiley.

Informed by his participation in the international press coverage of Jackson’s death in 2009 and crystallizing around the iconic tracks ‘Thriller’ and ‘Black or White’, Dr Wiley’s essay, ‘Putting the Music Back into Michael Jackson Studies’, seeks to refocus attention on Jackson’s music in relation to discussion of his music videos and their sociocultural contexts.

It concludes by exposing the danger of over-interpreting the art through the lens of the biography of the originating artist, asking whether Jackson’s celebrity will ultimately rest on his contribution to the late twentieth-century entertainment industry or on the serious controversies with which he became associated.

Bibliographic citation

Wiley, Christopher. ‘Putting the Music Back into Michael Jackson Studies’, in Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle, new essays ed. by Christopher R. Smit. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012, pp. 101–16.

Full text 

Dr Wiley’s essay is available for download from City Research Online, the University’s research repository, at the following link: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/1211/

 

Dr Christopher Wiley interviewed for major feature on City’s BMus programme in Education magazine

15 December 2012

Christopher Wiley Media , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The current issue (Vol.25, No.4) of Ireland’s Education magazine includes a major feature, ‘A unique music degree in London’, on City University London’s BMus Music course.

Education Magazine, Vol. 25/4

Describing the degree as ‘a very attractive package for those wishing to pursue a career in music or the self-expression that music involves’, the double-page spread includes an interview with Dr Christopher Wiley, Director of Undergraduate Studies, who is quoted as saying that ‘We are very averse to sending away interesting and well-qualified candidates. We like to engage with people as individuals not as statistics or a series of grades.’

The feature also includes information about the course structure, admissions, performance possibilities, and employment prospects, as well as a profile of second-year BMus student Jane McConnell.

Appearing on pages 16-17 of the magazine, the article may be viewed at the following link: http://issuu.com/educationmagazine/docs/education_magazine_25-4?mode=window&viewMode=doublePage