What do we mean by the term animation when we are discussing film? Is it a technique? A style? A way of seeing or experiencing a world that has little relation to our own lived experience of the world ? In Animated Worlds, contributors reveal the astonishing variety of worlds animation confronts us with. Essays range from close film analyses to phenomenological and cognitive approaches, spectatorship, performance, literary theory, and digital aesthetics. Authors include Vivian Sobchack, Richard Weihe, Thomas Lamarre, Paul Wells, and Karin Wehn.
Introduction by Suzanne Buchan
1. The Joyous Reception: Animated worlds and the Romantic Imagination by Rachel Kearney
2. The Animated Spectator: Watching the Quay Brothers' Worlds by Suzanne Buchan
3. The Strings of the Marionette by Richard Weihe
4. Gesturing toward Olympia by Heather Crow
5. Literary Len: Trade Tattoo and Len Lye's Link with the LIterary Avant-Garde by Miriam Harris
6. Literary Theory, Animation, and the Subjective Correlative : Defining the Narrative World in Brit-lit Animation by Paul Wells
7. Animated Fathers: Representations of Masculinity in The Simpsons and King of the Hill by Suzanne Williams-Rautiola
8. Animated Interactions: Animation Aesthetics and the World of the Interactive Documentary by Paul Ward
9. New Media Worlds by Thomas Lamarre
10. Style, Consistency, and Plausibility in the the Fable Gameworld by David Surman
11. Final Fantasies: Computer Graphic Animation and the [Dis]Illusion of Life by Vivian Sobchack
12. An Unrecognised Treasure chest: the Internet as Animation Archive by Karin Wehn
Suzanne Buchan is Reader in Animation Studies, and head of the Animation Research Centre at the Faculty of Arts & Media, Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University College, United Kingdom.