An Interdisciplinary Journal

One of the many people I met at the Platform Festival in Portland two weeks ago (I’m just now getting around to unpacking my bags) was Suzanne Buchan of Britain’s Animation Research Centre, and editor of a new academic journal, Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

Hers is the second such publication to be regularly published. We already have a great one in Maureen Furniss’s Animation Journal which mainly draws from papers delivered at the Society of Animation Studies. For decades serious discussion of animation, its theories and critical writing have been generally ignored by academia. It’s wonderful that we finally have two such publications studying the subject.

As much as I love reading about animation, scholarly journals can be a tough haul for me and many others outside the academic world. However, it’s another point of view, beyond online forums and blogs, with which to analyze and explore the art form. Suzanne’s publication is currently offering the contents of a sample issue free online, with subjects ranging from the origins of anime, to examining Polar Express and the work of Yuri Norstein.