Comic Books Earn an Ivy League Ph.D.
In 2015, comic book acedemia experienced a watershed moment even if many mainstream fans and publishers were generally unaware of what was unfolding. A doctoral candidate at Columbia University Teacher's College named Nick Sousanis successfully defended his dissertation. What makes this personal milestone so important is that this dissertation is the very first completed entirely in comic book form.
Up until this point, there were academic who wrote comic-centric dissertations, which are typically book-length texts that focus on both breadth and depth of research while introducing original ideas and concepts to their respective fields of study. And while these less conventional topics are not the norm amongst most Ph.D. students, they have grown more popular in recent years with the continued intermingling of popular culture and education in general. For example, it is not uncommon to peruse through a local Barnes & Noble and find books discussing superheroes and philosophy or feminist readings of character like Wonder Woman, and many of these often started off as doctoral dissertations. But one quick glance through these books makes it clear that although they are about comic books, they are not comic books themselves.
More at site.
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In 2015, comic book acedemia experienced a watershed moment even if many mainstream fans and publishers were generally unaware of what was unfolding. A doctoral candidate at Columbia University Teacher's College named Nick Sousanis successfully defended his dissertation. What makes this personal milestone so important is that this dissertation is the very first completed entirely in comic book form.
Up until this point, there were academic who wrote comic-centric dissertations, which are typically book-length texts that focus on both breadth and depth of research while introducing original ideas and concepts to their respective fields of study. And while these less conventional topics are not the norm amongst most Ph.D. students, they have grown more popular in recent years with the continued intermingling of popular culture and education in general. For example, it is not uncommon to peruse through a local Barnes & Noble and find books discussing superheroes and philosophy or feminist readings of character like Wonder Woman, and many of these often started off as doctoral dissertations. But one quick glance through these books makes it clear that although they are about comic books, they are not comic books themselves.
More at site.
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