The Julius Schwartz Lecture

The inaugural Julius Schwartz Lecture was recorded for a DVD, which is currently scheduled for release later this summer. If you would like to be notified when the DVD goes on sale, please email schwartz-lecture AT mit DOT edu.

The Julius Schwartz Lecture is an annual event held to honor an individual who has made significant contributions to the culture, creativity and community of comics and popular entertainment. The 2008 lecture was held on May 23rd in Kresge Auditorium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The lecture was hosted by the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT, and was founded to honor the memory of longtime DC Comics editor Julius "Julie" Schwartz, whose contributions to our culture include co-founding the first science fiction fanzine in 1932, the first science fiction literary agency in 1934, and the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939. Schwartz went on to launch a career in comics that would last for well over 42 years, during which time he helped launch the Silver Age of Comics, introduced the idea of parallel universes, and had a hand in the reinvention of such characters as Batman, Superman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman and the Atom.

The event is typically structured as a short lecture presented by the honored speaker, followed by a question-and-answer discussion between the speaker and the head of the Comparative Media Studies program, media scholar Henry Jenkins III. This will be followed by an open question-and-answer session between the lecturer and the audience. The inaugural speaker for the series was New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman.