Assistant Professor Carol Tilley is an invited speaker for the A.W. Mellon Workshop on Comics at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her presentation, to be held on Friday, November 15, is titled “Children, Comics, and Print Culture.” Over the year-long A.W. Mellon Workshop series, scholars at the Center for Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison host invited speakers, share readings, and hold conversations.
Tilley has received national attention for her research on Fredric Wertham, a psychiatrist and anti-comics critic whose 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent inspired federal hearings that decimated the comic book industry. Tilley's research is based on a review of Wertham’s personal archives, which were made available to researchers in 2010. During her review, she found numerous inconsistencies between the case notes of children treated by Wertham and the content in his book. Wertham’s personal archives showed that the doctor revised children’s ages, distorted their quotes, omitted other causal factors and in general “played fast and loose with the data he gathered on comics.”
Tilley’s presentation is open to the public.