Abstract
[Excerpt] A scholarly monograph by a Merrimack College faculty member, This Thing Called Life follows Joseph Vogel’s volumes on Michael Jackson and James Baldwin. As Vogel notes, biographies of the artist abound, accompanied by cultural studies, histories, and memoirs from his circle—and even an academic course taught by Questlove. However, topics such as his politics have received only brief treatments thus far. Vogel aims to address Prince’s life and work more thoroughly via seven themed chapters—on politics, musical genre, race, gender, sex, religion, and death. Acknowledging the paradoxes to be found, the author understands that the binary transgressions that have confounded people can also illuminate the self-determination that was crucial to Prince.