Call for Book Chapters: "Animation and Public Engagement before and at the Time of Covid-19"

We invite expressions of interest in an edited volume titled "Animation and Public Engagement before and at the Time of Covid19".

This call is an invitation for researchers and practitioners from all disciplines to contribute essays on animation and its engagement with the public sphere and civil society (defined by the World Health Organization as “the space for collective action around shared interests, purposes and values, generally distinct from government and commercial for-profit actors.”) Interdisciplinary approaches are particularly welcome. The selected essays will supplement 10 articles that have already been approved for publication.

Animation can be used both as a radical artistic language and as a DIY practice. The medium is intrinsically related to the technologies of globalization that have encouraged new forms of expression and spaces for engagement in social issues. Animation can reflect and potentiate the myriad ways people mobilize and create practical, authentic knowledge through interaction with the material world and with each other that have been strained by the COVID pandemic. This global health crisis has challenged animators in general, but especially those involved in social engagement, to find creative ways of working in the field as well as to help others cope with the new social landscape. Therefore, we would invite essays that consider how the latest events have altered, challenged, or confirmed the authors’ appreciation of the potential of animation to impact and transform society.

The spirit of the publication is to provide the widest possible range of approaches to the topic of social engagement, which is often theorized exclusively within the framework of social justice. We do not offer a definition or preferred interpretation of the phrase “social engagement,” and invite the contributors to propose their owns, as we consider animation’s relationship to social practice as evolving, complex, and contingent on the particularities of the issues, community groups, and researchers/participants involved in each project.

To engage is to incite interest, to propose actions that require involvement and interaction with other people. In the words of art educator Ross Schlemmer, we seek to establish animation’s potential to contribute to “a new terrain of consciousness that is socially responsible and ethically sound and goes beyond mere promotion of aesthetic quality to contribute to improved quality of life” (2017). This compilation, by resisting to propose a single narrative or a distinctive approach to animation and social engagement, seeks to reflect the diversity of experiences and theoretical reflections on animation as a socially responsible and ethically sound practice.

We invite proposals that address one or more of the following themes:

• Animation and public engagement in general.

• Animation and education

• Animation for wellbeing, or as therapeutic practice

• Animation practice at the time of coronavirus.

Final contributions should not exceed 8.000 words (minimum 4.000) and will include a maximum of 2 illustrations. The book will be peer-reviewed.

CALENDAR

03/20/2022: Submission Deadline of expression of interest proposals due

03/23/2022: authors notified of the editors’ decision

07/15/2022: Full manuscripts due

8/17/2021: 1st Review: authors notified

10/01/2022: Revised chapter due

11/15/2022: 2nd (external) reviews: authors notified

12/15/2022: final manuscripts due

If you are interested in contributing to the book, please submit an essay proposal to book editors, Jorgelina Orfila: Jorgelina.orfila@ttu.edu and Francisco Ortega: Francisco.ortega@ttu.edu, that includes:

1. Title of essay

2. Proposal of no more than 300 words (excluding bibliography)

3. Five keywords

4. Theme that your essay contributes towards

5. Short bio including your name and affiliation (up to 150 words)