Simply said, Unflattening is an ambitious, theoretically grounded, and beautifully designed text. While the book contains a collection of written notes designed to provide more information about the “backstory” and “influences behind the words and drawings” (p. 155- 170), the visual text (p. 1-152) works pretty much as a stand-alone piece. As a matter of fact, it is known today as the first doctoral dissertation entirely written in comics format. Before its publication by Harvard University Press, Unflattening existed as Nick Sousanis’ doctoral dissertation, which he defended at Columbia University. Unflattening is all this and more: it draws from art, science, philosophy, and mythology to offer us a linguistic and visual reflection on knowledge, discourse, and meaning-making processes.ĢWritten entirely in comics form, Sousanis’ book is an invitation to explore the intersections between form and content, hereby expanding our definition of literacy and scholarly inquiry. Others, like Douglas Wolk in the New York Times, considered Unflattening to be “a genuine oddity, a philosophical treatise in comics form” ( New York Times Book Review, May 2015). 1Scott McCloud, the famous American comic artist and theorist best known for his pivotal work on Understanding Comics (1993), described Unflattening as “a complex, beautiful, delirious meditation”.
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