some books i’ve found so far*:
- animacies: bio politics, racial mattering and queer effect by mel y. chen
- anime: from akira to princess mononoke by susan j. napier
- the anime machine by thomas lamarre
- animation in asian and the pacific by john a. lent
- animation: a world history (vol. 3) by giannalberto bendazzi
- anime fan communities: transcultural flows and frictions by sandra annett
- diversity in disney films: critical essays on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and disablity by johnson cheu
- japanese visual culture by mark w. macwilliams
(it’s annoying how most of those are written by white people but they’re what i’ve found from the college’s library so far)
i also found a bunch of articles on jstor that i need to sort through when i have time
questions/topics to think about:
- who enjoys anime and why?
- in what ways have american cartoons/media (disney, cartoon network, nickelodeon, 4kids, etc) fucked up in terms of representation? how have they done well? in what ways have their shows taken influence from asian cultures?
- why such a heavy focus on east asian cultures? issues of power + influence
- why do we enjoy these things? what brings us to be interested in fantasy + other genres that cartoons + anime illustrate? what’s the appeal?
- what’s up with fandom culture? unpacking fandoms
- finding friendship through shared interests and hobbies
- calling out problematic issues in the media we enjoy
- how has my upbringing affected the media i enjoy? how has home affected my earlier understandings of things? in what ways have i grown + continue to grow since then?
*i’ve checked out/requested from summit all of these books except for the japanese visual culture one. (if anyone would like to use these books for their final projects as well please let me know! i’ll likely only need a few sections out of each of the books anyways so if u want to borrow or use these after i do feel free to reach out to me)