Professor Nick Sousanis Wins Marcus Transformative Research Award

Humanities and Liberal Studies Associate Professor Nick Sousanis will create a companion piece to “Unflattening” (Harvard University Press), his critically acclaimed scholarly dissertation in graphic-novel form.

Under the working title “Nostos” — Greek for the journey home — the new comic intends to inspire people to practice their thinking with a crayon.

“How might we envision returning to the mindset where drawing isn’t something encountered with fear,” Sousanis asks, “but with the openness we once enjoyed as children, when we made drawings, sang and danced without the paralysis of self-doubt?”

His deeply intricate, detailed drawing pushes the boundaries of comics: A 22-page sequence in “Nostos” can be read as traditional double-page spreads or opened to one 15-foot-long image.