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PODCAST

Fantasy/Animation

Fantasy/Animation

Christopher Holliday is Senior Lecturer in Liberal Arts and Visual Cultures Education at King’s College London (UK). Alexander Sergeant is a Lecturer in Digital Media Production at the University of Westminster (UK), specialising in the history and theory of fantasy cinema. Each episode, they look in detail at a film or television show, taking listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation.

tv & film

All Episodes

12:41

Footnote #5 - High Fantasy and Low Fantasy

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/04/25

Footnote #5 seeks to embrace the sub-division of fantasy literature through distinctions of “high” and “low,” whereby the era of post-Tolkien fantasy was culturally and critically understood through the identification of the genre’s specific storytelling modes. Listen as Chris and Alex (well, mostly Alex) give a rundown of the role of alternative worlds and mythic tropes used in such divisions; sword-and-sorcery genre elements, folkloric imagery, and character archetypes; how such categories relate

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01:00:19

Contemporary Ukrainian Animation (with Joshua First)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/04/18

Episode 95 is a special Fantasy/Animation double header, with two recent computer-animated films up for discussion as Chris and Alex look into the stories and symbols of contemporary Ukrainian animation - the country’s first 3D CG film The Dragon Spell (Manuk Depoyan, 2016) based on the stories of Ukrainian writer Anton Siyanika, and The Stolen Princess (Oleg Malamuzh, 2018), a fantasy that adapts the fairytale Ruslan and Ludmila by Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin. This week’s instalment features as

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11:46

Footnote #4 - Stop-Motion

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/04/11

In Footnote #4, Chris and Alex unpack the uncanny spectacle and affecting effects of stop-motion animation, from understanding the hands-on labour that crafts its illusions of life to the oneiric ‘stopped-motion’ worlds of Ladislas Starevich, Willis O’Brien, Ray Harryhausen, Jan Švankmajer and the Quay Brothers. Listen as they spend 10 minutes working through the European found object tradition; the use of stop-motion as part of the armoury of Hollywood effects technology; the power of awarding

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51:47

Encanto (2021) (with Dolores Tierney)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/04/04

Chris and Alex finally talk about Bruno (among other things) in this latest episode of the podcast, turning to the fantasy and family of Encanto (Byron Howard & Jared Bush, 2021), Disney Feature Animation’s computer-animated musical that tells the story of the magical Madrigal family via protagonist Mirabel, ably supported by lush visuals, colourful abstractions, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s score inspired by the vallenato, cumbia, bambuco and rock en español genres. Joining them for Episode 94 is

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01:44

Fantasy/Animation supports the #UCUstrike

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/03/28

A short note on the ongoing strike action currently happening across a number of UK Higher Education Institutions over devastating cuts to pensions and deteriorating pay and working conditions. More information about the strikes can be found by visiting the UCU website: www.ucu.org.uk.

en

01:52

Fantasy/Animation supports the #UCUstrike

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/03/21

A short note on the ongoing strike action currently happening across a number of UK Higher Education Institutions over devastating cuts to pensions and deteriorating pay and working conditions. More information about the strikes can be found by visiting the UCU website: www.ucu.org.uk.

en

01:02:26

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) (with Brian Attebery)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/03/14

Myth, magic, and technology take to the skies in Episode 93 of the podcast, with Howl’s Moving Castle (Hayao Miyazaki, 2004) providing a welcome return to the steampunk spectacle and metamorphic marvels of Japanese anime. Joining Chris and Alex to examine Studio Ghibli’s 2004 feature film fantasy of flight is Professor Brian Attebery, writer and professor of English at Idaho State University, who took over as editor of the Journal of the Fantastic in Arts in 2006, and is also a prolific author whose

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12:08

Footnote #3 - Fantasy

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/03/07

Chris and Alex talk all things fantasy in this second Fantasy/Animation Footnote Episode, following-up their discussion of animation with a rapid journey through fantasy from Aristotle and European enlightenment through to J. R. R. Tolkien and Mary Poppins. In just 10 minutes, Alex works through fantasy’s relationship to genre theory alongside the non-generic ways of thinking about fantasy as a highly nebulous mode of storytelling and (unstable) iconography; the ‘blockbustering’ of fantasy in

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01:38

Fantasy/Animation supports the #UCUstrike

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/02/28

A short note on the ongoing strike action currently happening across a number of UK Higher Education Institutions over devastating cuts to pensions and deteriorating pay and working conditions. More information about the strikes can be found by visiting the UCU website: www.ucu.org.uk.

en

03:05

Fantasy/Animation supports the #UCUstrike

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/02/21

A short note on the ongoing strike action currently happening across a number of UK Higher Education Institutions over devastating cuts to pensions and deteriorating pay and working conditions. More information about the strikes can be found by visiting the UCU website: www.ucu.org.uk.

en

01:03:55

Lady and the Tramp (1955)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/02/13

Tuck in for some Valentine’s Day spaghetti and meatballs as Chris and Alex chew on Walt Disney’s celebrated cel-animated love story Lady and the Tramp (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson & Hamilton Luske, 1955), a musical romance released in the mid-1950s and based on the 1945 Cosmopolitan magazine story “Happy Dan, The Cynical Dog” by Ward Greene. The studio’s first CinemaScope release and a film that coincided with the opening of Disneyland in California, Lady and Tramp is rife with context and

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12:00

Footnote #2 - Animation

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/02/07

The first Fantasy/Animation Footnote Episode proper launches with this short discussion on the origins and genealogies of animation, from cave paintings and Victorian children’s toys to the lightning sketch tradition and comic books. Over the course of 10 minutes, Chris and Alex offer a rapid quickfire journey through the many optical illusions of animation and the performance (and performativity) of the medium, including the spectacular vitality of characters and objects coming to life; the

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01:02:45

Rio (2011) (with Michael Tanzillo)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/01/31

In this latest episode, Chris and Alex examine one of the most important animation companies of the last 20 years in Hollywood – Blue Sky Studios – who made significant contributions to the shape and direction of U.S. animation, and particularly the computer-animated film. Formed in February 1987 by animator Chris Wedge, the studio recently hit the headlines as they are now sadly in the past tense – The Walt Disney Company acquired Blue Sky as part of their 2019 purchase of 21st Century Fox and

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11:08

Footnote #1 - Introduction

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/01/24

Fantasy/Animation launches its new series of Footnote Episodes with this short introductory discussion that explains what to expect from these bonus fortnightly instalments, which will serve as brief ‘footnotes’ to the main podcast. Listen as Chris and Alex explain the form and function of these supplementary episodes that are intended to be an extra space where listeners can sharpen up on the definition of some key terms, ideas, and contexts related to the study of fantasy and animation. In

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01:12:11

See You Yesterday (2019) (with Ebony Elizabeth Thomas)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2022/01/17

2022 kicks off with the provocative politics and violent tragedies of See You Yesterday (2019), the Netflix science-fiction feature about the time-travel adventures of two young scientific prodigies in Brooklyn. The special guest for this discussion on the stakes of temporality, the futility of breaking out of a cycle, and the immediacy of racialised trauma is Dr. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Associate Professor in the Division of Literacy, Culture, and International Education (University of Pennsylvania

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01:01:14

Mickey‘s Christmas Carol (1983) (with Amy M. Davis)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2021/12/20

For the 2021 Christmas special episode of the podcast, Chris and Alex turn to the short Mickey’s Christmas Carol (Burny Mattinson, 1983), the Walt Disney Studio’s cel-animated retelling of the Charles Dickens masterpiece directed and produced by longtime Disney storyboard artist Burny Mattinson. Joining them to discuss Disney’s cultural relationship to Christmas and its longstanding history of festive-themed productions starring its most beloved characters is Dr. Amy M. Davis, Lecturer in Film

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01:03:54

Gremlins (1984) (with Catherine Lester)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2021/12/06

Mogwai and monsters after midnight are the focus of Episode 88, as Chris and Alex take a closer look at the part-horror, part-Christmas feature Gremlins (Joe Dante, 1984) with special guest Dr. Catherine Lester, Lecturer in Film and Television in the Department of Film and Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. Catherine’s work focuses largely on the intersections between children’s culture and the horror genre, and she is the author of Horror Films for Children: Fear and Pleasure in

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01:07:29

Chinese Animation and the Shanghai Animation Film...

Fantasy/Animation ·

2021/11/22

For Episode 87, Chris and Alex are joined by special guest Dr. Yuanyuan Chen, who teaches animation history and theory at Ulster University, for this brief introduction to Chinese animation and the work of the pioneering Shanghai Animation Film Studio. From propagandist impulses and opera traditions to Chinese state politics and painterly aesthetic styles, the complex history of Chinese animation and its more recent iterations are reflected in this cross-section of contemporary examples, which all

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01:03:15

The Secret of NIMH (1982)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2021/11/08

The result of our latest social media poll charting listeners’ favourite Don Bluth animated film yields the focus of Episode 86, where Chris and Alex uncover The Secret of NIMH (Don Bluth, 1982), the filmmaker’s very first animated feature and one that would set the template for his tone and style to follow. Following up their recent episode on The Land Before Time (Don Bluth, 1988), listen as they sit down to discuss the mechanical vs. the magical in the way Bluth constructs his detailed animated

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01:04:55

Lovecraft Country (2020) (with Bambi Haggins)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2021/10/25

Episode 85 discusses the recent HBO horror television series Lovecraft Country (2020), developed by Misha Green as a continuation of Matt Ruff’s 2016 novel, and places the story of 1950s racial segregation in the United States on a collision course with the science-fiction world of H.P. Lovecraft. Joining Chris and Alex for this latest episode is Dr. Bambi Haggins, Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at UC Irvine whose work explores race, class, gender and sexuality in

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244 results

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