Ian Gordon

Growing up in Australia my first encounter with the USA was through the media of television and comic books. My interest in the USA has expanded to include the broad sweep of American history, but the early interest in media still features in my teaching and writing and I still watch far too much television, although I no longer read superhero comic books except for academic purposes, which lately has been quite a lot. After completing my undergraduate degree in Australian and American history I spent six years in the United States between 1987 and 1993, first at Rochester in upstate New York, and then in Washington, DC where I researched and worked at the Library of Congress (1990-1991) and the Smithsonian Institution (1991-1993). The Washington Post described my first book, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture (1998, 2002), as "engaging". Choice (a review of books for librarians) said: “Superman: The Persistence of an American Icon is extraordinarily rich, the analysis is meticulously conceived and implemented, and the writing is clear and interesting.” Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Sympathizer, added that it is a “highly readable and insightful treatment of the comic book and cinematic Superman.” Before coming to NUS in June 1999 I worked as a lecturer and administrator in Australian tertiary institutions. Of things American I have a passing tolerance for American football, baseball, and basketball, and love rock 'n roll and jazz. I was Head of the Department of History twice (2004-2006 and 2017-2021). I have also been attached to New York University (2014-15), the University of Melbourne (2007) and the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (2007).

TEACHING AREAS

• American History

CURRENT RESEARCH

• Media and Communication
• Transnational Transmedia
• National Identities
• Popular Culture

SELECTED RESEARCH

Books

• Superman: The Persistence of an American Icon. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2017).
• Kid Comic Strips: A Genre Across Four Countries. (New York: Palgrave, 2016).
• Comic Strips and Consumer Culture (Washington: Smithsonian, 1998, Paperback edition 2002.)
• The Superhero Symbol: Media, Culture, and Politics. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2019).
• Ben Katchor: Conversations. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2018).
• The Comics of Charles Schulz: The Good Grief of Modern Life. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2017).
• Film and Comic Books (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007).

Articles

• "Rose O'Neill and Visual Tropes of Blackness," in Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness in Early American Comics, 1900-1960, edited by Qiana Whitted (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2023).
• “Rose O’Neill’s Kewpies and Early Transmedia Practices,” in Transmedia Practices in the Long Nineteenth Century, edited By Christina Meyer, Monika Pietrzak-Franger. (London: Routledge, 2022).
• “Bildungsromane and Graphic Narratives,” in A History of the Bildungsroman, ed. Sarah Graham. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
• “Refiguring Media: Tee shirts as a site of audience engagement with Superheroes,” The Information Society, 32.5 (2016): 301-305.
• “The Moral World of Superman and the American war in Vietnam,” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 6.2 (2015): 172-181.
• “Comics, Creators, and Copyright: On the Ownership of Serial Narratives by Multiple Authors,” in The Companion to Media Authorship, eds. Jonathan Gray and Derek Johnson (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2013).
• "La bande dessinee et cinema," in La bande dessinee: une mediaculture. Eric Maigret and Matteo Stefanelli eds. Paris: Armand Colin, 2012.
• “Nostalgia, Myth, and Ideology: Visions of Superman at the End of the American Century,” in Cultural Studies. Michael Ryan (ed). (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008).
• “Blockbuster Meets Superhero Comic, or Art House Meets Graphic Novel,” (co-authored,) Journal of Popular Film and Television, 34 (Fall 2006): 108-114.