The Animation Studies Reader

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.

Nichola Dobson is a Lecturer in Animation at Edinburgh College of Art, UK. Founding editor of Animation Studies (2006 - 2011) and Animation Studies 2.0 (2012- present), she has published on animation, television genre and fan fiction, including Historical Dictionary of Animation and Cartoons (2009). She was President of the Society for Animation Studies from 2015-2019.

Annabelle Honess Roe is Senior Lecturer and Programme Director for Film Studies at the University of Surrey, UK. She is author of Animated Documentary (2013); co-editor of The Animation Studies Reader (2019), Vocal Projections: Voices in Documentary (2018); and editor of Aardman Animations: Beyond Stop-motion Film (2020).

Caroline Ruddell is Lecturer in Film and TV Studies at Brunel University, London, UK. She is the author of The Besieged Ego: Doppelgangers and Split Identity Onscreen (2013), and has published on witchcraft in television, anime, Rotoshop, and the representation of identity onscreen, and is currently researching Lotte Reiniger's use of scissor artistry. She is Reviews Editor for animation: an interdisciplinary journal and sits on various Editorial Boards.