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. 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).

I maintain a blog that includes a Publications page with links to full text for many of my published articles. https://ilgordon.wordpress.com/

TEACHING AREAS:

• US History
• Media History

CURRENT RESEARCH AREAS:

• US History
• Media and Communication
• Popular Culture

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

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).
• 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).

Selected Articles

• “Truth, Justice, and the Human Way in James Gunn’s Superman,” Public Humanities, 2025;1 doi:10.1017/pub.2025.10077
• “The Batman TV Series (1966–68) and its impact on Batman Comic Books,” Source: Notes in The History Of Art, 43.2, (Winter 2024): 100-110.
• "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).
• “Bildungsromane and Graphic Narratives,” in A History of the Bildungsroman, ed. Sarah Graham, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
• “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