About the Book
The Animation Studies Reader brings together both key writings within animation studies and new material in emerging areas of the field. The collection provides readers with seminal texts that ground animation studies within the contexts of theory and aesthetics, form and genre, and issues of representation. The first section collates key readings on animation theory, on how we might conceptualise animation, and on some of the fundamental qualities of animation. New material is also introduced in this section specifically addressing questions raised by the nature, style and materiality of animation. The second section outlines some of the main forms that animation takes, which includes discussions of genre. Although this section cannot be exhaustive, the material chosen is particularly useful as it provides samples of analysis that can illuminate some of the issues the first section of the book raises. The third section focuses on issues of representation and how the medium of animation might have an impact on how bodies, gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity are represented. These representations can only be read through an understanding of the questions that the first two sections of the book raise; we can only decode these representations if we take into account form and genre, and theoretical conceptualisations such as visual pleasure, spectacle, the uncanny, realism etc.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Nichola Dobson, Annabelle Honess Roe, Amy Ratelle and Caroline Ruddell
Section One: Theory, Philosophy, Concepts
1. Approaching Animation and Animation Studies
Caroline Ruddell (Brunel University London, UK) and Lilly Husbands (University of Arts London, UK and Middlesex University, UK)
2. The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde
Tom Gunning (University of Chicago, USA)
3. Re-Animating Space
Aylish Wood (University of Kent, UK)
4. Realism and Animation
Mihaela Mihailova (Michigan State University, USA)
5. The Uncanny Valley
Lisa Bode (University of Queensland, Australia)
6. Animation and Performance
Annabelle Honess Roe (University of Surrey, UK)
7. Animation and Memory
Victoria Grace Walden (University of Sussex, UK)
8. Some Thoughts on Theory-Practice Relationships in Animation Studies
Paul Ward (Arts University Bournemouth, UK)
Section Two: Forms and Genres
9. Absence, Excess and Epistemological Expansion: Towards a Framework for the Study of Animated Documentary
Annabelle Honess Roe (University of Surrey, UK)
10. Experimental Animation
Paul Taberham (Arts University Bournemouth, UK)
11. Features and Shorts
Christopher Holliday (King's College London, UK)
12. Advertising and Public Service Films
Malcolm Cook (University of Southampton, UK)
13. Political Animation and Propaganda
Eric Herhuth (Tulane University, USA)
14. TV Animation
Nichola Dobson (Edinburgh College of Art, UK)
15. Animation and/as Children’s Entertainment
Amy Ratelle (editor of Animation Studies)
16. Video Games and Animation
Chris Pallant (Canterbury Christ Church University, UK)
Section Three: Representation: Frames and Contexts
17. Race, Resistance and Violence in Cartoons
Nicholas Sammond (University of Toronto, Canada)
18. We’re Asian. More Expected of Us: The Model Minority and Whiteness in King of the Hill
Alison Reiko Loader (Concordia University, Canada)
19. Transformers Rescue Bots: Representation in Disguise
Nichola Dobson (Edinburgh College of Art, UK)
20. Anime’s Bodies
Rayna Denison (University of East Anglia, UK)
21. Disney Films 1989-2005: The “Eisner” Era
Amy M. Davis (University of Hull, UK)
22. Taking an Appropriate Line: Exploring Representations of Disability within British Mainstream Animation
Van Norris (University of Portsmouth, UK)
Index
About the Author :
Nichola Dobson is a teaching fellow in design and screen cultures at Edinburgh College of Art, UK. Founding editor of Animation Studies (2006 - 2011) and Animation Studies 2.0 (2012- present).
Bella Honess Roe is a lecturer at the University of Surrey, UK, where she is the programme director for Film Studies. Her scholarship and teaching focuses on animation, documentary and popular culture more broadly.
Amy Ratelle is the Research Coordinator for the Semaphore Research Cluster on Mobile and Pervasive Computing, at the University of Toronto, Canada.
Caroline Ruddell is Lecturer in Film and TV Studies at Brunel University, London, UK. She is Reviews Editor for the animation: an interdisciplinary journal and sits on various Editorial Boards.
Review :
[A] very good resource for a comprehensive understanding of the field … The Animation Studies Reader’s editors certainly succeeded in demonstrating the richness and diversity of animation and animation studies.
Featuring an impressive array of important topics by leading figures in the field of animation studies, this book provides an excellent resource for introductory or advance study. It is a much-needed resource for courses, reflecting the ubiquity of animated imagery in its wide ranging forms and contexts.
The essays in this volume expose to scrutiny a wide range of questions essential to our comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon and process of animation, as well as its role not only in contemporary cinema but in the widest cultural and social contexts. Editors Nichola Dobson, Annabelle Honess Roe, Amy Ratelle and Caroline Ruddell, through twenty-two carefully selected texts, provide complex and exhaustive research of the field of animation. The carefully-structured Reader argues that animation is a far reaching and multi-layered phenomenon that both demands and deserves a carefully proposed and mapped out multiperspective approach. The theoretical platform and analytical optique are presented in a systematic, detailed and didactic way, making this collection of texts accessible for the widest reading audience.
The Animation Studies Reader is a formidable compilation of outstanding contributions to the body of scholarship in modern animation studies. Well organized into three main thematic sections, it presents a veritable "who is who" of the most eminent scholars in the field. It covers a wide range of topics that reflect the main areas of academic significance and contemporary relevance. As such, the tome is an indispensable treasure trove for animation theorists, students and academically inclined practitioners alike. Highly recommended.
