FANTASMIC! Magic, Materiality & Animation - A Research Seminar with Paul Ward, Festival Fellow of the Centre for Humanities & Holland Animation Film Festival

Paul Ward is one of the leading scholars in the UK in the field of animation studies. He is
currently Principal Lecturer in Animation at the Arts University College at Bournemouth and
serves as the President of the international Society for Animation Studies
[www.animationstudies.org]. Dr. Ward’s work focuses on the emergence of Animation Studies as
an interdisciplinary field. His current research explores the interfaces between animation and a
range of other cultural practices, including videogames, documentary/non-fiction filmmaking and
computer-generated imagery. Furthermore Dr. Ward investigates the convergence/dialectic
between ‘animated’ media, ‘live action’ media, as well as the history and theory of documentary
practices. Paul Ward has published numerous articles, contributed to and written several books.
His work has also appeared in scholarly journals such as the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and
Television; Animation Journal and Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies.  Ward’s article ‘Some
Thoughts on Theory-Practice Relationships in Animation Studies’ published in animation: an
interdisciplinary journal, won the McLaren-Lambart Award for Best Scholarly Essay (in the field of
Animation Studies) in 2008. Dr Ward has already marked the field of Animation and
Documentary theory significantly and we are proud to be able to welcome him as our first CfH-
Holland Animation Festival Fellow.
 
In this Seminar, organized in collaboration with the Media and Culture Studies Department, you
are given the opportunity to take part in an interactive programme with Ward. The “magic” of
animation, the use of animation in documentaries and its effect on the field of documentary
theory, will be discussed and illustrated with a number of extracts from animated movies.
 
Students are required to prepare the following three texts:
Ward, Paul (2011) ‘Animating with Facts: The Performative Process of Documentary Animation
in the ten mark (2010)’, animation: an interdisciplinary journal, 6(3): pp 293-305.
 
Wiliamson, Colin (2011) ‘The Blow Book, Performance Magic, and Early Animation: Mediating
the Living Dead’, animation: an interdisciplinary journal, 6(2): pp 111-126
 
Carels, Edwin (2006) ‘Animation = A Multiplication of Artforms?’ in Benjamin Cook and Gary
Thomas (eds) the animate! book: rethinking animation. London: Lux, pp. 14-22
 
additional reading: North, Dan (2008) Performing Illusions: Cinema, Special Effects and the
Virtual Actor. London: Wallflower (sections on animation and magic theatre)

Thursday, march 22, 2012, 14-17.00
Studio, Kromme Nieuwegracht 80, Utrecht
RMA & MA students can apply with an email with a brief motivation to cfh@uu.nl