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 (streaming services and K-Drama), although I no longer read superhero comic books except for academic purposes. At the heart of my work is the historical processes that produce value in intellectual property figures like Superman, Spider-Man, and Snoopy. Societies that aspire to have cultural industries and arts sectors have much to learn from such histories although they haven’t always been appreciated.

After completing my undergraduate degree in Australian and American history at the University of Sydney I spent six years in the United States between 1987 and 1993, first at the University of Rochester in upstate New York where I earned my PhD studying with historians such as Susan Kingsley Kent, Christopher Lasch, Bonnie Smith, Stewart Weaver, Robert Westbrook, and Mary Young, and outside the Department with Andrew Ross. I then moved to Washington, DC for my research at the Library of Congress (1990-1991) and the Smithsonian Institution (1991-1993) and finished up my time there working for the Smithsonian. The Washington Post described my first book, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture (1998, 2002), as “engaging”. Choice (a review of books for librarians) said of my second book: “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).