This book reflects a growing interest in animation as a medium that spans a far wider range of films than that of cartoons for children. Animation has emerged from its previously marginalised status both in terms of growing adult audiences for the heterogenous range of films that come under the heading 'animation', and in terms of providing a corpus of work deserving serious academic analysis.

The serious study of popular culture has provided fertile ground for the development of sophisticated forms of critical commentary, and cartoons - both from the classic Hollywood era and from more contemporary feature films and television series - offer a rich field for detailed investigation and analysis. An even greater richness is provided by the growing Western appetite for Japanese anime. At the same time, animation has provided the stimulus for a wide range of analyses drawing from the traditions and theoretical studies of many other disciplines, including film, television and media studies, art history and criticism, feminism and gender studies. All these fields and modes of analysis are reflected in A Reader in Animation Studies, which also covers the long tradition of art-animation - particularly in Eastern and Western Europe - which prompt different critical responses, A Reader in Animation Studies also includes the fascinating issues about the very definition of animation raised with the fairly recent development of the use of computer technology.

For the first time, this book makes available to a wider readership a selection of papers, deliberately eclectic in approach, presented at the annual conferences of the Society for Animation Studies (SAS). Adopting a range of theoretical, critical and historical perspectives, A Reader in Animation Studies analyses many individual films, both classic and contemporary.

Contents include: