B.A. (Hons.) (Syd); M.A., Ph.D. (Rochester)
Tel: (65) 6516 4694
Office: AS1 05 - 40

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 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 worked at the Smithsonian Institution. The Washington Post described my first book, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture (1998, 2002), as "engaging". Before coming to NUS 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. During my 2007 sabbatical I was a visiting professor at the University of Melbourne and the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. When I have free time I play tennis and try to collect Wallace Shawn action figures and the difficult to find movies of Parouche Coldstream; I particularly want the rare doco-drama with the soundtrack by Kid Dupree and the KP Horns.

TEACHING AREAS:

-	Film and other Media
-	Intellectual History

CURRENT RESEARCH:

-	Media and Communication
-	Memory
-	National Identities
-	Popular Culture

PUBLICATIONS:

-	Comic Strips and Consumer Culture (Washington: Smithsonian, 1998, Paperback edition 2002)
-	Comics and Ideology (New York: Peter Lang, 2001). co-edited.
-	"Superman on the Set: The Market, Nostalgia and Television Audiences," in Quality Popular Television: Cult TV, the Industry, and Fans (London: British Film Institute and Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003)
-	Blockbuster Meets Superhero Comic, or Art House Meets Graphic Novel,” (co-authored,) Journal of Popular Film and Television, 34 (Fall 2006): 108-114.
-	Film and Comic Books (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007). co-edited.
-	“Nostalgia, Myth, and Ideology: Visions of Superman at the End of the American Century,” in Cultural Studies. Michael Ryan (ed). (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008).

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