“What is Batman?” —Query from Lionel Trilling to Allen Ginsberg in an Aug. 1945 letter. Ginsberg had written Trilling that he’d bought some Batman comic books to better fit in with his U.S. Maritime Service shipmates. Page 177, “The Free World,” Louis Menand.
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Replying to @TimothyNoah1
Was Trilling still around when academe started to accept cultural studies as a legit discipline? Batman has spawned a lot of monographs.
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Replying to @TimothyNoah1
Bowling Green State University established its popular studies department in 1973.
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Replying to @MichaelMcGough3 @TimothyNoah1
People Trilling would know -- Leslie Fiedler, Jules Feiffer, Umberto Eco -- were writing about Batman long before then. (And Trilling in his last interview talked about his enthusiasm for Kojak).
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Replying to @HeerJeet @TimothyNoah1
I assume he didn’t read Fredric Wertham.
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No, but he would have read Robert Warshow on Werthem (and indeed Trilling wrote the introduction to Warshow's collection of writings on comics & film)
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