
The Routledge Companion to Animation Studies
Description
Bringing together 46 original contributions from a broad range of international scholars, this comprehensive volume maps the key debates, histories, concepts, and practices that shape animation studies today.
Organised into thematic sections, it addresses animation's historical development, representational politics, and cultural functions, alongside focused discussions of aesthetics, sound, technology, and production contexts. Topics include race, gender, disability, medium specificity, environmentalism, artificial intelligence, game engines, computer-generated animation, and global animation cultures, with sustained attention to both established traditions and emerging forms.
Designed as both a reference work and a pedagogical resource, this Companion is an essential guide for researchers, teachers, and students working in animation, film, and media studies, as well as readers approaching animation from adjacent disciplines or professional contexts.
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Persons
Nichola Dobson is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Director in Animation at Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh. Founding editor of Animation Studies (2006 - 2011) and Animation Studies 2.0 (2012-2020), she has published on animation, television genre and fan fiction, including Norman McLaren: Between the Frames (2018) and Historical Dictionary of Animation and Cartoons, Volume 2 (2020). She was President of the Society for Animation Studies between 2015 and 2019. She is currently the Director of the Animation Research Network Scotland.
Paul Taberham is Associate Professor of Film Studies at Arts University Bournemouth. He is the author of Lessons in Perception: The Avant-Garde Filmmaker as Practical Psychologist, and Poetics of Animation: Medium, Context, and Aesthetics. He is also co-editor of Cognitive Media Theory, Experimental Animation: From Analogue to Digital, and Introduction to Screen Narrative: Perspectives on Story Production and Comprehension. A Fellow of the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image and an editorial board member for animation: an interdisciplinary journal, his research approaches film and animation through the analytic tradition, with particular attention to poetics, narratology, and cognition.
Content
Part I: Eras and Forms 1. Early Studios 2. Golden Age and Television 3. Pixar and Post-Digital Studios 4. Children's Animation 5. Adult Animation 6. Animated Documentary 7. War and Propaganda 8. Experimental Animation Part II: Representation 9. Race 10. Gender 11. Queer 12. Mental Illness 13. Disability Part III: Themes 14. Medium Specificity 15. The Disney Princess 16. Cartoon Violence 17. Children's Animation and Audience Studies 18. Education 19. Nature 20. Environmentalism 21. Science 22. Artificial Intelligence Part IV: Aesthetics 23. Colour 24. Space 25. Character Design 26. Visual Effects 27. Visual Modernism 28. Disney Aesthetics 29. 3D Computer Animation 30. Games Engines for Animation 31. Stop-Motion 32. Fluid Frames 33. Puppetry 34. Screenwriting Part V: Sound 35. Classical Music 36. Animated Musicals 37. Beat-Based Synchronisation 38. Movement and Rhythm Part VI: National Animation and Anime 39. African 40. Chinese 41. Czech and Slovak 42. Irish 43. Anime Origins 44. Anime Auteurs: Makoto Shinkai and Hayao Miyazaki 45. Sh¿jo 46. Anime and Media Mix