Nick Sousanis | |
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![]() Sousanis at the 2015 Texas Book Festival. | |
Born | Walter Nickell Sousanis |
Education | B.A., Western Michigan University Ed.D., Teachers College, Columbia University |
Occupation(s) | Cartoonist, scholar, teacher, art critic |
Known for | TheDetroiter.com Unflattening |
Website | http://spinweaveandcut.com/ |
Walter Nickell "Nick" Sousanis is an American scholar, art critic, and cartoonist; a co-founder of the TheDetroiter.com, he is also the first person at Columbia University to write a dissertation entirely in a comic book format. [1] [2]
Sousanis believes that comics are powerful teaching tools [3] and has developed courses on comics at Teachers College and Parsons. [4] In addition to his classroom teaching, Sousanis' artwork has been exhibited in such venues as Microsoft Research in Seattle. [5] He publishes articles on teaching with comics in the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy and other venues. [6] In addition to publishing, Sousanis has spoken at symposiums and conferences around the world. [7] The noteworthiness of Sousanis' contribution to the field of academics has been discussed in Inside Higher Ed [8] and The Chronicle of Higher Education . [9]
A former professional tennis player and instructor, Sousanis majored in mathematics at Western Michigan University.[ citation needed ]
Sousanis and his brother John Sousanis co-founded thedetroiter.com in October 2002, where he served as Editor in Chief. [10] He also contributed arts coverage for the Detroit Metro Times . [11] He became the biographer of legendary Detroit artist Charles McGee. [12]
While he was living in Detroit, Sousanis' own artwork appeared in a number of shows in the Detroit area, including a billboard for the Ferndale, Michigan Public Art Project. [13] and he served as a board member and, for a period, the chairman of the non-profit arts organization Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit (CAID). [14] In recognition of his accomplishments in the arts community of Southeastern Michigan, Sousanis was selected as one of Crain's Detroit Business's "40 under 40" for 2006. [15] [16] In 2007, Sousanis was appointed the founding Director of Exhibitions for Work @ Detroit, [17] [18] an exhibition space in Detroit operated by the University of Michigan School of Art & Design.
In early 2008, Sousanis moved from Detroit to New York City to pursue a Doctorate of Education in Interdisciplinary Studies at Columbia University's Teachers College. [19] At that point TheDetroiter.com was sold to the YMCA. [17]
In 2011, Sousanis organized the 2011 Game Show NYC. [20] Talks were given by Maxine Greene, Tony Wagner, Fred Goodman, and Donald Brinkman at the concurrent conference for Creativity, Play, and Imagination Across Disciplines. [21]
Sousanis defended his dissertation, titled "Unflattening: A Visual-Verbal Inquiry into Learning in Many Dimensions," at Teachers College, Columbia University in May 2014. [22] His dissertation was published by Harvard University Press in April 2015 as Unflattening; [23] the New York Times called it:
a genuine oddity, a philosophical treatise in comics form. 'Flatness,' for Sousanis's purposes, is not the quality of abstraction that Clement Greenberg lauded in modern art, but the lamentable condition of the inhabitants of Edwin A. Abbott's 'Flatland': the inability to understand that there might be more than one can immediately perceive. The solution he proposes is admitting visual elements, and especially drawings, into the intellectual domain of language. (Psst — he's talking about comics!)" [24]
Unflattening won the 2015 Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, taking top honor as book of the year. [25]
In 2015, Sousanis accepted a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Calgary, where he taught about comics. [26] In Fall 2016, joined the School of Humanities and Liberal Studies at San Francisco State University as an Assistant Professor. [27]
In 2018, Sousanis won the Eisner Award for Best Short Story for "A Life in Comics: The Graphic Adventures of Karen Green". [28]
Oakland County is a county in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a principal county of the Detroit metropolitan area, containing the bulk of Detroit's northern suburbs. Its county seat is Pontiac, and its largest city is Troy. As of the 2020 Census, its population was 1,274,395, making it the second-most populous county in Michigan, and the largest county in the United States without a city of 100,000 residents.
The Detroit Metro Times is a progressive alternative weekly located in Detroit, Michigan. It is the largest circulating weekly newspaper in the metro Detroit area.
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TheDetroiter.com is a website providing articles, blogs, interviews, a calendar of events and editorials for the Detroit, Michigan arts and cultural community. Its motto is "Unearthing a great American city, one story at a time."
John Sousanis is publisher and co-founder of TheDetroiter.com. John served as an entertainment writer, theater critic, and weekly columnist for the Oakland Press from 1996 through 2003. He is the co-author of Constitutional Amendments: From Freedom of Speech to Flag Burning, a three-volume history of the process and politics surrounding ratified and proposed amendments to the US Constitution. Born in Michigan, John is an alumnus of Harvard University. Sousanis has authored two plays that were produced by Planet Ant Theatre in Hamtramck, Michigan. As of 2005, he serves as president of the Board of Directors of Meadow Brook Theatre Ensemble, Michigan's largest professional theater.
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Charles McGee was an American artist and educator known for creating paintings, assemblages, and sculptures. His artwork is in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. He also had several large-scale public works in the city of Detroit.
Kevin Franklin, EdD was born in Virginia, where he received degrees in psychology and education from Old Dominion University. He holds a Doctorate of Education in organization and leadership from the University of San Francisco. Formerly executive director of the University of California system-wide Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) and a deputy director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), Franklin was appointed as executive director of the Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science, (I-CHASS), research professor, education policy, organization and leadership, adjunct associate professor, African American studies, and senior research scientist for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in July 2007. In addition Franklin was appointed associate director for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in 2014.
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The LGBT community in Metro Detroit is centered in Ferndale, Michigan, as of 2007. As of 1997, many LGBT people live in Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge, and Royal Oak. Model D stated in 2007 that there are populations of gays and lesbians in some Detroit neighborhoods such as East English Village, Indian Village, Lafayette Park, and Woodbridge and that the concentration of gay bars in Detroit is "decentralized".
Affirmations is a Michigan nonprofit community center serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population of Ferndale, Michigan, and nearby communities.
Julian Lawrence is a Canadian cartoonist, educator and comics scholar. A longtime member of Vancouver's DIY independent art scene, Lawrence is also an arts educator and researcher, with a specialization in using hand drawn comics as a tool to improve literacy, develop storytelling techniques and form identity. He currently resides in Middlesbrough, England, where he is a Senior Lecturer in the Comics and Graphic Novels B.A. Honours program at Teesside University.
Sam Richardson is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He is best known for playing Richard Splett in the HBO political comedy series Veep (2012–19), co-creating and co-starring in the Comedy Central comedy series Detroiters (2017–18) alongside Tim Robinson, and for playing various characters in the Netflix sketch show I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (2019–present), Aniq Adjaye in the Apple TV+ series The Afterparty (2022–23), and Norville "Shaggy" Rogers in the Max series Velma (2023–present). In 2022 and 2023, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance as Edwin Akufo in Ted Lasso, winning the 2023 award in this category.
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Unflattening is a graphic novel by artist and researcher Nick Sousanis that was originally the first dissertation from Columbia University to be written in a comic book format. The book was published by Harvard University Press in April 2015 and won the 2015 Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, taking top honor as book of the year. The Brazilian edition of the book, won the 2018 Troféu HQ Mix in category "best theoretical book".