Animating the Spirited: Journeys and Transformations, Eds. Hu, Yokota, Harvath (University Press of Mississippi, 2020)
Time on your hands for some reading? Out now! This new anthology considers the spiritual side of anime and animation from a range of different traditions with a chapter on using drawn animation as a form of mindful meditation with students written by myself and Graham Barton. Other contributors to the book are Raz Greenberg, Gyongyi Horvath, Tze-yue G. Hu, Yin Ker, M. Javad Khajavi, Richard J. Leskosky, Yuk Lan Ng, Giryung Park, Eileen Anastasia Reynolds, Akiko Sugawa-Shimada, Koji Yamamura, Masao Yokota, and Millie Young
Getting in touch with a spiritual side is a craving many are unable to express or voice, but readers and viewers seek out this desired connection to something greater through animation, cinema, anime, and art. Animating the Spirited: Journeys and Transformations includes a range of explorations of the meanings of the spirited and spiritual in the diverse, dynamic, and polarized creative environment of the twenty-first century. While animation is at the heart of the book, such related subjects as fine art, comics, children’s literature, folklore, religion, and philosophy enrich the discoveries. These interdisciplinary discussions range from theory to practice, within the framework of an ever-changing media landscape. Working on different continents and coming from varying cultural backgrounds, these diverse scholars, artists, curators, and educators demonstrate the insights of the spirited.
Authors also size up new dimensions of mental health and related expressions of human living and interactions. While the book recognizes and acknowledges the particularities of the spirited across cultures, it also highlights its universality, demonstrating how it is being studied, researched, comprehended, expressed, and consumed in various parts of the world.
Edited by Tze-yue G. Hu, Masao Yokota and Gyongyi Harvath for University Press of Mississippi, this book adds a new rich layer of discourses to the field of Animation Studies. More info here: https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/A/Animating-the-Spirited
Expanded Animation 