Dear Colleagues,
Proposals are invited for chapters in a new edited collection on the topic
of ‘Indian Animated Media and Culture.’
Indian animation has transformed dramatically over the last twenty-five
years. No longer a cottage industry or government-funded communication
enterprise, a diverse globally-engaged production sector has emerged. Large
Indian studios have built global reputations securing animation and visual
effects production contracts, while other artists and firms have made
strides in original content for local television and film festival
audiences. While outsourcing still represents a majority of entertainment
output, work-for-hire contracts have slowly given way to co-production.
International brands have also set up shop in India, from multinational
distributors like Disney XD or AT&T’s Cartoon Network, to producers like
Technicolor and Ubisoft. In striking contrast to these developments,
artisanal and even explicitly non-commercial animation continues to be
produced, and in some cases thrive.
There are also persistent challenges. Industry growth has rarely met
predicted targets. The domestic animated features many thought would drive
expansion have largely failed to materialize, as outsourcing to other Asian
nations has increased television competition as well. Bankruptcies at both
local and international firms have shaken investors while a not-yet-united
animation community has struggled to secure policy recognition apart from
the dominant Hindi-language cinema and Information Technology (IT) sectors.
However, taking an expanded view of animation to incorporate related areas
- visual effects, games, comics, fine art, educational, and industrial
visualization - shows both a more complex and optimistic picture - from
growing Indian investment in global visual effects to children’s animation
workshops in rural Adivasi communities.
Both the successes and challenges of Indian animation have largely escaped
attention from audiences, critics, and scholars alike. While a growing body
of scholarship draws global critical attention to the cultural practice of
Indian - and especially Hindi - cinema, animation remains for the most part
missing from these accounts. This volume aims to fill this glaring gap by
addressing a range of expanded animation practices in India, as well as
their social, economic, and political impacts.
Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Case studies of diverse active and historical animators in cultural
context
- Regional industry clusters: relationships with live-action cinemas
- Television animation: from Doordarshan to multinational networks
- Animation, Information Technology (IT), and global visual effects
- Globalization: the 1991 New Economic Policy, outsourcing, and
co-production
- Government animation: Films Division and the Cartoon Film Unit
- Education and training: from Clair Weeks, Charles and Ray Eames and
the National Institute of Design (NID) to the Media and Entertainment
Skills Council (MESC)
- Fine art, documentary, and avant-garde animation
- Animation and the sacred
- Adivasi animation: animation by, for, and about indigenous communities
- Animation and emerging media: Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR)
- Women in animation, animation and identity: from caste to LGBTQ rights
- Applied/Industrial animation
- India and her neighbors/the South Asian diaspora
- The status of animation studies itself in India
Proposals for chapters (7000-8000 words) in this edited collection should
include a chapter title, a brief abstract (400 words), and academic
biography (100 words). These should be sent to the editor Dr. Timothy Jones
([log in to unmask]) before 25th January 2019.
Best Regards,
Tim
Dr Timothy Jones
Director, Academic Media Center
Assistant Professor of Media Arts
School of Communications & Information Systems
Robert Morris University
----
To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF Screen-L
in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]
|
