I noticed there was also a lecture on the characters of Leigh Brackett at the Pop Culture Association Meeting in DC.
And lots of comic stuff. This one should keep a few of us interested since there are some Bringing up Father fans out there.
A paper by Christopher Dowd, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English
From the Gutters of Hogan’s Alley to the Lace Curtains of Jiggs and Maggie: Irish-American Comic Strips
The dramatic rise in popularity of comic strips in late 19th and early 20th century America coincides with the arrival and assimilation of Irish immigrants fleeing poverty, starvation, and oppression in their homeland. The Irish became the first ethnic group to immigrate to America en masse, and the questions and anxieties that Americans had regarding incorporating this ethnic minority population into the national body played out in the earliest American comic strips.
This paper traces the development of Irish-American characterization in comic strips like Hogan’s Alley, Mutt & Jeff, Bringing Up Father, Tracy, and Little Orphan Annie. Attention is given both to the work of Irish-American cartoonists like George McManus who constructed Irish characters from a perspective inside the ethnic group to non-Irish cartoonists like Harold Gray who worked from outside. While many comic strips reveal a familiarity with old Irish stereotypes, some of the most notable comics of the era demonstrate a dynamic reformulation of Irish identity in the popular imagination.
Chris Dowd earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Connecticut and is an Assistant Professor at the University of New Haven. His book The Construction of Irish Identity in American Literature was published in 2011 by Routledge.
McManus as Jiggs