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 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).

Annabelle Honess Roe is Senior Lecturer and Programme Director for Film Studies at the University of Surrey, UK. She is the author of Animated Documentary (2013), which was the recipient of the 2015 Society for Animation Studies McLaren-Lambart award for best book.

Amy Ratelle is the editor of Animation Studies, the online peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Animation Studies (SAS). She is currently an academic administrator at the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto, Canada.

Caroline Ruddell is Senior Lecturer in Film and TV at Brunel University London, UK. She is Series Co-Editor (with Paul Ward) for the Palgrave Animation book series, and Associate Editor for animation: an interdisciplinary journal.