Several members of the Scottish Centre for Comics Studies are based at the University of Dundee, including the Directorate, although there are many other members from across Scotland.
Professor Christopher Murray
Director
Christopher is Chair of Comics Studies and Associate Dean International, Knowledge Exchange and Impact at the School of Humanities, University of Dundee. He is Director of the Scottish Centre for Comics Studies and Dundee Comics Creative Space. He teaches several undergraduate courses on comics and the Comics & Graphic Novels MLitt/MDes. He also supervises several PhD students undertaking research on comics. His research focuses on British and American Comics. He has published on various aspects of comics, including:
- the British superhero;
- the relationship between American superhero comics, popular culture and propaganda during World War Two;
- the comics of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison;
- horror comics;
- independent/small press comics (mini-comics);
- British comics, specifically DC Thomson.
Murray co-edits Studies in Comics, a peer-reviewed academic journal and is co-organiser of the International Graphic Novel and Comics Conference. He also works on Public Information Comics, and has authored several comics for research projects and public engagement purposes. He is Secretary of the Scottish Word and Image Group, and co-editor of UniVerse Publications.
Dr Golnar Nabizadeh
Golnar is a Lecturer in Comics Studies at the University of Dundee. Her research focuses on comics and visual studies and particularly on representations of trauma, migration, and memory in these fields. Golnar received her PhD in English and Cultural Studies from The University of Western Australia, and has a monograph with Routledge entitled Representation and Memory in Graphic Novels (2019).
Dr Damon Herd
Damon is lecturer in Communication Design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. His research area is life narratives told in the comics medium, with a particular interest in British comics, and the games authors play with truth. He has been published in Studies in Comics, and on The Comics Grid, and is a regular contributor to comics blog Graphixia. He produces his own comics including The Adventures of Ticking Boy, and is also the organiser of DeeCAP, a comics performance event based in Dundee.
Mayra Crowe
International Projects Development Coordinator
Mayra is a Senior Lecturer in Spanish in the School of Humanities at the University of Dundee. She is the International Projects Development Coordinator for the Scottish Centre for Comics Studies. She teaches on the Applied Languages programme and the Graduate Diploma in Spanish by Distance Learning (for which she is the Programme Leader) as well as other Humanities modules within the School. Her research and scholarship focuses on bereavement, translation issues and Human Rights for Older Persons, particularly through public information comics.
Professor Divya Jindal-Snape
Educationist in Residence
Divya is Chair of Education, Inclusion and Life Transitions in the School of Education and Social Work. She is Director of the Transformative Change: Educational and Life Transitions (TCELT) Research Centre. She does research on life transitions, including the impact of life limiting conditions and bereavement.
Dr Brian Hoyle
Brian is a lecturer in Films Studies at the University of Dundee. He teaches on the Comics and Film module, and is involved in various other Comics modules. His research interests include Film Adaptation, film-makers such as John Boorman, Ken Russell, John Huston, and Fred Zinneman. He has written on The Road to Perdition in The International Journal of Comic Art.
Matthew Jarron
Curator
Dr Thom Giddens
Thomas is Lecturer in Law in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Dundee, Scotland. His research focuses on critical, comics, and cultural legal studies, with particular interests in aesthetics, epistemology, visuality, and form. He founded the Graphic Justice Research Alliance and is author of On Comics and Legal Aesthetics: Multimodality and the Haunted Mask of Knowing (Routledge 2018). He edited the volumes Critical Directions in Comics Studies (University Press of Mississippi 2020) and Graphic Justice: Intersections of Comics and Law (Routledge 2015), and coedited Law and Justice in Japanese Popular Culture: From Crime Fighting Robots to Duelling Pocket Monsters (Routledge 2018). He is also editor of the ongoing Graphic Justice Special Collection at The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship.
Scottish Centre for Comics Studies 