University of Dundee - Comics experts are just dandy

An expert on comics has challenged academics who get snooty about Lord Snooty and his Beano pals. Christopher Murray, who this week hosted the second annual conference on comics at the University of Dundee, believes that the interdisciplinarity of research in the subject is exactly what funding bodies want to see. Dr Murray teaches English and film studies at Dundee, and also lectures on comics in the university's Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. Comics scholars have no traditional home, and tend to be isolated within their institutions, in departments ranging from English to history, he said. "Because of that, they're remarkably polyglot. They see themselves as adopting a multiplicity of methodologies and points of view, and not being defensive. It's a model of where this encouragement to cross barriers is going."