Event Lectures and Symposia Censorship, the Comic Book, and "Seduction of the Innocent" at 70: A Roundtable Discussion

In 1954, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham published "Seduction of the Innocent: The Influence of Comic Books on Today’s Youth", a book that cemented his role as America’s most prominent critic of comic books. At the time, comic books were near the peak of their popularity, with titles like "Batman", "Superman", and "Captain Marvel" selling as many as 1.5 million copies per month. The content of those comics was also entirely unregulated. Writing amid a moral panic that Wertham himself helped create, "Seduction of the Innocent" almost immediately helped spur the formation of the Comics Code Authority, which dramatically reshaped the nation’s comic book industry.

Join staff of the Manuscript and Serial & Government Publications divisions for a roundtable discussion with three comic studies scholars who will make brief presentations on current research, and discuss Wertham’s anti-comics legacy and its afterlives in more recent clashes over representations of race and sexuality in comics and graphic novels.