Deadline: January 17, 2025

Wladyslaw Starewicz (aka Ladislas Starevich, 1882-1965), the Polish-Lithuanian-Russian-French pioneer of stop-motion animation. Image taken from kaunasfilmoffice.com/istorines-asmenybes/wladyslaw-starewicz/

Animation has always been transnational. For instance, the Zagreb School of Animation inspired the emergence of the Chinese School of Animation (Huang 2022), whereas Chinese animation both shaped and was shaped by Japanese and Soviet animation (Du 2019). Walt Disney decided to adapt the Grimm Brothers’ version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into his first feature-length production after his visit to the lucrative Nazi German market (Giesen 2023). With its world-renowned capacities for experimentation, the National Film Board of Canada has attracted animators from countries as diverse as the UK, Brazil, India, Denmark, and Bulgaria. Japanese anime in particular came to embody the transnational in animation studies, from their cultural appropriation and piracy in South Korea and Indonesia (Pellitteri and Heung-wah 2022) to the “cartoon planet” effect of their global spread (Cooper-Chen 2012) to their reproduction of heterosexual normativity in different linguistic environments (Hiramoto 2013); to name just a few examples of the rich and varied scholarship.

In their introduction to the seminal Transnational Animation issue of Animation Studies, Agnoli and Denison (2019) adhered to the scholars of transnational cinema Higbee and Lim in arguing that “a definition of transnational cinema is less useful than a critical approach to investigating how animation becomes transnational.” This flexible approach allowed the journal contributors to illuminate phenomena such as the tensions of the 24/7 global corporate VFX production, Anglophone marketing strategies for a video game co-produced by Studio Ghibli, and the eclectic world-building in the background design of the animated Avatar TV franchises.

Building on the above considerations, we welcome contributions from a variety of perspectives (e.g. theoretical, practical, historical, technological, and aesthetic) on transnational animation. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Mobility of people, labor, and capital beyond the limits of the nation-states (e.g. migrant animators, outsourcing, co-productions);

• Circulation of various modes of distribution, exhibition, and reception (e.g. online platforms, international festivals, fandom);

• Transfer and (mis)appropriation of technologies, knowledge, and skills;

• Translation and transmutation embedded in transnational animation (e.g. dubbing, alternate versions for niche markets);

• Exchange and development of ideas about transnational (e.g. hybrid, diasporic, and exilic) identities, especially in animated narratives;

• Flows of images, information, and conceptions across (media) borders and boundaries (e.g. the overlaps of transnationalism and transmedia; the global spread of animation protocols and practices in different media).

We welcome posts that:

1. are between 600 and 900 words discussing any aspect of the above topics.
2. are forwarded as a Microsoft Word document.
3. include at least one image to visually support their argument/post.
    a) The images must be less than 2 MB in size per image and sent as individual files.
    b) Please indicate where the images should be placed in the text, including image caption(s) and credits. All permissions are the responsibility of the contributor.
4. include a short bio of 100 words max.
5. include 3 keywords.

Please contact guest curator Dragan Batancev via dbatancev@yorkvilleu.ca with submissions or questions, and CC editors Carmen Hannibal and Anastasiia Gushchina on blog@animationstudies.org.