Vor wenigen Wochen veröffentlichte die Harvard University Press die erste Verlagspublikation, die komplett in Comicform gehalten ist: Nick Sousanis‘ „Unflattening“ wurde 2014 von der Teachers College Columbia University als Dissertationsschrift angenommen und hat seither bereits einige Aufmerksamkeit in der Presse erfahren. Derzeit ist Sousanis als post-doc Forscher an der University of Calgary in den Comic-Book Studies tätig. Ein recht interessantes Interview zu den medialen Möglichkeiten des Comics im akademischen Diskurs ist auf Teaching Culture zu finden.

Verlagstext:

„The primacy of words over images has deep roots in Western culture. But what if the two are inextricably linked, equal partners in meaning-making? Written and drawn entirely as comics, Unflattening is an experiment in visual thinking. Nick Sousanis defies conventional forms of scholarly discourse to offer readers both a stunning work of graphic art and a serious inquiry into the ways humans construct knowledge.

Unflattening is an insurrection against the fixed viewpoint. Weaving together diverse ways of seeing drawn from science, philosophy, art, literature, and mythology, it uses the collage-like capacity of comics to show that perception is always an active process of incorporating and reevaluating different vantage points. While its vibrant, constantly morphing images occasionally serve as illustrations of text, they more often connect in nonlinear fashion to other visual references throughout the book. They become allusions, allegories, and motifs, pitting realism against abstraction and making us aware that more meets the eye than is presented on the page.“

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