Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture: A Re-Examination of the Critic Whose Congressional Testimony Sparked the Comics Code [Paperback]

Bart Beaty (Author)

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Product Details

Paperback: 238 pages
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (Oct 7 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1578068193
ISBN-13: 978-1578068197
Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15 x 2 cm
Shipping Weight: 408 g
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #898,393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Book Description

Too often remembered solely as the psychiatrist and cultural critic whose testimony in Senate subcommittees sparked the creation of the Comics Code, Fredric Wertham was a far more complex man. Author Bart Beaty traces the evolution of Wertham’s attitudes toward popular culture and re-assesses his place in the debate about pop culture’s effects on youth and society.

When The Seduction of the Innocent was published in 1954, Wertham (1895-1981) became instantly known as an authority on child psychology. Although he had published several books before Seduction, its sharp criticism of popular culture in general—and comic books in particular—made it a touchstone for debate about issues of censorship, child protection, and freedom of speech. Despite the nuances of his arguments in that book and his evolution as a critic throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Wertham is best remembered as one of the most inflexible critics of popular culture in postwar America.

Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture is an examination of Wertham’s career, providing a fresh perspective that re-interprets Wertham’s intellectual legacy, and challenges received notions about his assumed cultural conservatism. Beaty analyzes all of Wertham’s published works, as well as his heretofore unreasearched and unpublished private papers, correspondence, and notes. In the process, Beaty reveals a man whose opinions on culture and media were not nearly as cut-and-dried as suggested by his books, and whose life and career offer more subtlety of thought than previously assumed. In particular, the project examines Wertham’s change of heart in the 1970s, when he began to claim that comics could be a positive influence in American society. Beaty explores Wertham’s career as a child psychologist, communications scholar, and public intellectual.

The Wertham that emerges is a critic who was significantly more progressive and multi-faceted than those who condemn him would ever assume.

Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
Fredric Wertham opened a January 1953 article in the Saturday Review by observing, "At present this nation has more psychoanalystsand incidentally more murders and more comic booksthan any other two or three nations combined" (19533:16). Read the first page

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Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index

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Amazon.com: 2.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)

0 of 34 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars the man was strange all right....., Sep 7 2008

By Joe Mac Guy "NA" - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture: A Re-Examination of the Critic Whose Congressional Testimony Sparked the Comics Code (Paperback)

Why he suddently had a change of heart toward comic books in the 1970's, who can tell? But the debate he started over popular culture and the effects on children still goes on to this day and no one will ever find a satisfactory answer for.

› Go to Amazon.com to see the review 2.0 out of 5 stars