Chris Murray

Dr Chris Murray

University of Dundee, Department of English and Film Studies

Editor of Studies in Comics

Scottish Word and Image Group (SWIG), Organiser and secretary

Director of the Scottish Centre for Comics Studies

Contact Details

Email: c.murray@dundee.ac.uk

Telephone: 01382 384907

Postal Address: English and Film Studies Programme, School of Humanities, University of Dundee, Dundee,Scotland, DD1 4HN

Websites:

http://www.dundee.ac.uk/english/about/staff/chrismurray/ (university staff page)

http://www.scottishwordimage.org/ (Scottish Word and Image Group)

http://www.dundee.ac.uk/english/prospective/postgraduates/comicstudies/ (MLitt in Comics Studies)

http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=168/ (Studies in Comics)

Biography and Research Interests

Dr Chris Murray is Head of the English Department at the University of Dundee, Scotland, and lecturer in English, Film and Comics Studies. He teaches a module on British Comics at Undergraduate Level and runs the UK’s first Comics Studies MLitt programme. He also collaborates with Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee, helping to deliver modules on creating comics.  He is co-editor of the Journal Studies in Comics (Intellect) and author of a monograph on superhero comics and propaganda, Champions of the Oppressed (Hampton Press, 2011), as well as numerous articles and book chapters, including ones on Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, and horror comics. He has contributed entries on comics for Encyclopaedia Britannica and The Greenwood’s Encyclopedia of Comics and Graphic Novels.

Research interests: British Comics, Comics Theory, Film. Grant Morrison and Alan Moore

Publications

“Co(s)mic Horror: Lovecraft and Comics” (with Kevin Corstorphine), in Simmons (ed), edited collection on H. P. Lovecraft – title to be confirmed (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2012)

“These are not our Promised Resurrections…” in Alan Moore and the Gothic Tradition, ed. by Matt Green (forthcoming 2012,Manchester University Press).

“Denise Mina’s Hellblazer and the Triumph of Scottish Schadenfreude”, in Gothic Studies, Special Issue in Contemporary Scottish Gothic, ed. by Monica Germana (forthcoming 2012, Manchester University Press).

“The Pleasures of Persuasion: Comics and Propaganda”, in Critical Approaches to Comics and Graphic Novels, ed. by Matthew Smith and Randy Duncan (2011, Routledge).

Champions of the Oppressed: Superhero Comics, Propaganda and Popular Culture in America During World War Two (New Jersey, USA: Hampton Press, 2011)

“Signals from Airstrip One: The British Invasion of American Mainstream Comics” in The Rise of the American Comics Artist: Creators and their Contexts ed. by Paul Williams and James Lyon (Jackson:University ofMississippi Press, 2010), pp.31-45 (ISBN: 978-1-60473-792-9).

“Islands of Memory: The Science Fiction Films of Andrei Tarkovsky”, in Alienation and Resistance ed. by Gordon Spark, Laura Findlay, Pauline MacPherson and Andrew Wood (Cambridge Scholar’s Press, 2010), pp.96-114 (ISBN (10): 1-4438-1964-6, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-1964-0).

“Subverting the Sublime: Romantic Ideology in the Comics of Grant Morrison” in Sub/versions: Genre, Cultural Status and Critique , edited by Pauline MacPherson, Christopher Murray, Gordon Spark and Kevin Corstorphine (Newcastle : Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), pp.34-51 (ISBN (10): 1-84718-372-7, ISBN (13): 9781847183729).

“Biff! Bam!! Crikey!!!: A Comics Conference in Dundee”, in The International Journal of Comic Art, ed. by John Lent, 10:1 (2008)

“Holy Hypertexts! – The Pose of Post-modernity in Comics and Graphic Novels of the 1980s”, in Reflections on Creativity, ed. by H van Koten (Dundee: Duncan of Jordanstone College, 2007). [ISBN: 1 899837 56 6 <http://artanddesign.dundee.ac.uk/reflections/abstracts/ChrisMurray.htm>]

“Thur’s a Man wi a Big Chin an’ a Dug in Thon City Centre: The Importance of Dundee ’s Comics”, in The Scottish Society for Art History Journal, Special Dundee Issue, ed. by Matthew Jarron (November 2006)

“Noble Enterprises: Strip for Me and The British Small Press”, in The International Journal of Comic Art, ed. by John Lent, 7:2 (2005)

“My Mouth is Quiet But My Mind is Noisy: The Work of John Watson”, with Joyce Walker and Douglas Webster, in The International Journal of Comic Art, ed. by John Lent, 5:2 (2003)

“Superman vs Imago: Superheroes, Lacan and Mediated Identity”, in The International Journal of Comic Art, ed. by John Lent, 4:2 (2002)

“Rhetoric and Response: Superheroes and World War Two”, in Comics and Culture, ed. by Anne Magnussen and Hans Christian Christiansen (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000).

Conference Papers and Talks

“Scottish Comics”, at Scottish Wave of Change Conference, Glasgow, October 2011

“War Comics”, at Battlelines, Scottish Word and Image Group Conference, Dundee, October 2011

“All the Maps we have Mistaken for the World: Moore and Psychogeography”, at Comics and Graphic Novels: International Comics Conference, Manchester University, 5 – 9th July 2011

“Autobiographix: Comics, Violence and Life Writing”, Life Writing Seminar Series, Aberdeen, April 2011

“Dundee’s Comics”, Café Arts talk on DC Thomson Comics at McManus Galleries, Dundee, January 2011

“Vamp Trans-Vision: The Contemporary Celluloid Vampire”, DCA, Dundee, November 2010

“Multiversal Memetic Metafiction – Grant Morrison and Theory”, Leeds Comics Forum, Thoughtbubble, November 2010

“Is it a bird? Is it a Plane? No, it’s a talk about Formal Diversity in Comics!”, Dundee Culture Day, November 2010

“Web-comics: Braiding the Infinite Digital Canvas?”, Neon Digital Arts Festival, Dundee, October 2010

“Superhero or Superzero? The Reluctant Hero in Recent Superhero Films”, DCA, Dundee, September 2010

“The Eroticism of Place: Moore and Psychogeography”, at Magus: Transdisciplinary Approaches to the Work of Alan Moore, 28th and 29th May 2010, Northampton University.

“Islands of Memory”, Alienation and Resistance conference 2008, University of Dundee

Biff! Bam!! Crikey!!! Comics as Entertainment and Design, 2007, in collaboration with Six Cities Design Festival, funded by Scottish Executive and The School of Humanities

“Subverting the Sublime: Romantic Ideology in the Comics of Grant Morrison”, Sub/versions: Cultural Status, Genre and Critique, Postgraduate Conference, 2006,University of Dundee

“Holy Hypertexts! – The Pose of Postmodernity in Comics and Graphic Novels of the 1980s”, Reflections of Creativity, 2006,Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design

“Visual Discourse in Comics”, Scottish Word and Image Group Annual International conference, 1997, Aberdeen

“Making The Invisibles Visible: Fiction as Creative Magic”, Arts and Social Sciences/Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design Cross Faculty Initiative seminar, Making Theory Visible, Dundee Contemporary Arts, 2005

“Fearful Symmetries: Grant Morrison’s Influences and the Terrors of Authorship”, Postgraduate Seminar Forum,GlasgowUniversity, 2005

“This is the Voice of Mother Dirt: The Author as Anti-Person/Parapersonality in Grant Morrison’s The Filth”, Postgraduate Seminar Forum,DundeeUniversity, 2004

“Children’s Literature”, SWIG seminar, hosted by Postgraduate Seminar Forum, English Dept, Dundee University, 2003

“Framing Childhood: Comics, Children and the Censor”, John Darling Lecture Series,UniversityofAberdeen, 2003

“Don’t Know Whether to Laugh or Cry: Subversive Humour and Comedic Complicity”, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design,University of Dundee, 2003

“Confessions of a Word and Image Researcher”, Panel Discussion, Postgraduate Seminar Forum, English Dept, Dundee University, 2003

“Laughing up my Sleeve: Subversive Humour and Comics”, John Watson SWIG Seminar, Aberdeen, 2003 , also presented at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, 2003

“Strategies of Otherness in Comic Art and Propaganda During World War Two”, Altered States: Crisis, Transformation, Reformation, Postgraduate Conference, 2003, University of Dundee

“Boy Wonders at War: images of childhood in superhero comic and propaganda”, Scottish Word and Image Group Annual International Conference, 2002, Aberdeen

“Word and Image”, Panel Discussion, Postgraduate Seminar Forum, English Dept,Dundee University, 2002

“Superman vs Imago: Superheroes, Lacan and Mediated Identity”, Literary Theory reading group, 2001, Dundee University

“Literature and Film” Video Conference, hosted by St Andrews University, 2001,University of Dundee

“The Superhero as Myth”, Postgraduate Seminar Forum, English Dept, Dundee University, 2001

“The Path of the Righteous Man: Religious Imagery in Popular Culture”, SWIG Dundee seminar, 2000, Dundee University

“Too Horny For Homework: The Sexualisation of Youth Culture”, SWIG  Dundee seminar, 2000, Dundee University

“Plugging into the hypertext: Grant Morrison and The Invisibles”, Scottish Word and Image Group Annual International Conference, 2000, Aberdeen

“Popaganda: Superhero comics, propaganda and World War Two”, Scottish Word and Image Group Annual International Conference, 1999, Aberdeen

“Superhero Comics and World War Two”, Comics and Culture International Conference, 1998, Copenhagen

“Jack Kirby: King of the Comics Page”, Scottish Word and Image Group Annual International conference, 1998, Aberdeen

“Comics and Visual Narrative”, Scottish Word and Image Group, seminar, 1997, Dundee University

Exhibitions

“Gi Me a Spark of Nature’s Fire: Scottish Comics”, 2011-12,Brussels

Commando Exhibition, 2011, Lamb Gallery,Dundee

Starblazer Exhibition, 2009, Lamb Gallery,Dundee

Happy Birthday Beano!, 2008, Lamb Gallery,Dundee

An exhibition of the works of Hunt Emerson, Biff! Bam!! Crikey!!! Comics Conference, 2007, Lamb Gallery,Dundee

“Biff! Bam! Slice… Thud!”, Cultural Nightmares Exhibition, 2004,DundeeUniversity

“Where the Wild Things are: Children’s Imaginations”, 2002, Dundee Central Library/Aberdeen University/Marischal Museum,Aberdeen

“Marking Time”, 2000, Aberdeen