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, discussing how we might conceptualise animation and exploring 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 illuminate some of the issues raised in the first section of the book.

The third section focuses on issues of representation and how the medium of animation might impact how bodies, gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity are represented. These representations can only be read through an understanding of the questions raised by the first two sections of the book; 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.