East European Animation
This course examines the origins and development of animated film in Russia and the former Soviet sphere (especially Czechoslovakia, Poland and Estonia). Long considered a children’s medium, animation served as a vehicle for state propaganda but also – throughout its history in these closed, authoritarian societies – for politicized and even critical expression. More broadly, the course examines how popular culture interacts, reinforces and at times resists hegemonic structures. Artists covered include Wladislaw Starewicz, Nikolai Khodataev, Jan Švankmajer, Yurii Norstein, Fyodor Khitruk, Vyacheslav Kotenochkin and Yurii Kulakov. All films and readings in English translation.