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Freudian Strips Final 2020 (2).pdf (12.09 MB)

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FREUDIAN STRIPS: COMICS, MENTAL HEALTH, AND THE “PSYCHOLOGIZATION OF AMERICA”

Zullo, Valentino L
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8713-3866
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1586725663979058

Abstract Details

2020, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English.
The comic book industry and the United States mental health system met many times during the twentieth and twenty-first century. In 1941, psychologist William Moulton Marston, believing society needed reform, created the character of Wonder Woman to inspire readers to imagine a utopian future and advocated for the form of comics as a way to address social issues. In 1948, Fredric Wertham, psychiatrist and director of the Lafargue Mental Health Clinic in Harlem, also took an interest in comics. Wertham likewise thought society needed reform, but saw the images in comics as a cause rather than a solution for rising juvenile delinquency in the United States. He tried to rally parents and politicians to regulate children’s reading practices, taking his cause as far as the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency in 1954. In the course of a little less than two decades, these mental health specialists would leave an impact on the industry that would shock the form and its status for years. The enmeshment of mental health and comics would extend beyond these controversial figures, a history that is central to this dissertation project. The meetings of comics and mental health often led to new stories and shaped the future of the form in distinct ways. In this dissertation, I explore these critical moments where the history of comics and psychological health overlap, focusing on mainstream comics to understand the way that the comic book industry developed under the influence—and intrusion—of these practitioners of mental health and how their ideas prompted new stories. The many relationships comics has had with the psychological sciences that I consider in this project offer insight into the changing discourse of mental health in the United States, how those fields have redefined how we think about the self, and how comics have both documented and distributed these ideas.
Vera Camden, PhD (Advisor)
Tammy Clewell, PhD (Committee Member)
Jennifer MacLure, PhD (Committee Member)
Jon Yoder, PhD (Committee Member)
Susan Roxburgh, PhD (Committee Member)
264 p.
Art History; Literature; Psychology; Psychotherapy
Comics, Mental Health, Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Marvel, DC, Psychotherapy

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Zullo, V. L. (2020). FREUDIAN STRIPS: COMICS, MENTAL HEALTH, AND THE “PSYCHOLOGIZATION OF AMERICA” [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1586725663979058

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Zullo, Valentino . FREUDIAN STRIPS: COMICS, MENTAL HEALTH, AND THE “PSYCHOLOGIZATION OF AMERICA” . 2020. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1586725663979058.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Zullo, Valentino . "FREUDIAN STRIPS: COMICS, MENTAL HEALTH, AND THE “PSYCHOLOGIZATION OF AMERICA” ." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1586725663979058

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1586725663979058
201
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This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.