By Daisy Yan Du American animated films, such as the Out of the Inkwell series (1918-1929), were first introduced to Shanghai around the late 1910s and early 1920s, at a time when warlords had plunged China into wars and chaos. Usually screened before a live-action film, animated films were often called moving shadow plays (huodong … Continue reading Katong, Meishupian, and Donghua: On Terms of Chinese Animation
Download PDF By Yan Chen Since 2004, the Chinese government has been gradually implementing various policies to support the development of a domestic dongman industry. The year 2016 marked the 90th anniversary of Chinese animation, and numerous commemorative celebrations and exhibitions were launched, using phrases like “the 90th anniversary of dongman.” The use of the … Continue reading An Etymological Study of the Terms Dongman, Donghua, and Manhua
By Belinda Qian He While the field of animation studies has expanded in the past decades, scholarly attention paid to the world of animation has been limited to either major works or dominant theoretical approaches from the United States, Europe, and Japan. Among the few exceptions, the launch of the Association for Chinese Animation Studies (ACAS) and … Continue reading Chinese Animation, Creative Industries, and Digital Culture, by Weihua Wu. New York: Routledge, 2017. 206pp.
By Cyrus Huiyong Qiu Aaron Wenhai Zhou’s Ph.D. dissertation offers an in-depth exploration of the flourishing independent animation industry in modern China. While the growing animation industry in China and its rich variety of mainstream cultural products receive much of the spotlight from the media as well as attention from academia, research on Chinese independent … Continue reading Between Ideological Confinement and Cultural Creativity: An Exploration of Chinese Independent Animation as a Formative Agent of Cultural Identity, Ph.D. dissertation, by Aaron Wenhai Zhou, The University of Waikato, New Zealand, 2017. 318 pp.
By Hongmei Sun It is no surprise that the character of Sun Wukong, better known as Monkey or the Monkey King in the West, has made so many appearances in the history of Chinese animation, given his longstanding popularity in China among children and adults alike. As the protagonist of the sixteenth century classic novel … Continue reading Monkey King and Chinese Animation
By Isabel Galwey Shaopeng Chen’s PhD dissertation examines Chinese animation works for cinema between 1995—the year that the domestic production of Chinese animation ceased to be a state-run effort—and 2015, focusing on what he describes as a “new generation” of animations produced during this period. Chen uses this term both to differentiate films produced after … Continue reading The New Generation Chinese Cinema Animation (1995-2015): Industry and Aesthetics, Ph.D. dissertation, by Shaopeng Chen, University of Southampton, UK, November 2017. 328 pp.
By Eileen Chang; translated by Panpan Yang The word “cartoon” has a history of less than ten years in China. However, probably all moviegoers know Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse. “Cartoon” originally referred to all single-panel satirical comics, newsreel comics, life comics, serial comics and so on, but the kind of cartoon I want to talk … Continue reading On the Future of Cartoons (Eileen Chang, 1937)
By Rolf Giesen The Cartoon Forum is a yearly event organized by Cartoon Brussels that brings together TV animation producers from all over Europe to Toulouse, France. Although you will see a variety of incredible work at the Cartoon Forum, the sad truth is that TV is no longer the partner for animation it once … Continue reading Towards a Eurasian Model of Animated Filmmaking
Download PDF By Sean Metzger Many years ago, I published an article on Disney’s Mulan (1998), of which I am frequently reminded by the warblers on UCLA’s campus. A mainstay of karaoke events in the residence halls, the music of Mulan continues to serve as a reference point for many US-based youth. I overhear excerpts … Continue reading Compositing Japanese Imperialism in Two Chinese Animated Features: A Jewish Girl in Shanghai and Xi Bai Po 2: Wang Er Xiao
By Shasha Liu Daisy Yan Du’s PhD dissertation examines the transnational, national, and regional cultural undercurrents in the construction of national identity in Chinese animated films between the 1940s and 1970s. Du argues against a monolithic and timeless notion of Chinese identity and seeks to showcase the interconnections among national identity, politics and the arts … Continue reading On the Move: The Trans/national Animated film in 1940s-1970s China, Ph.D. dissertation, by Daisy Yan Du, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, May 2012. 227 pp.