Paul Ward is CfH-HAFF's first festival fellow 

On 23 September 2011, Paul Ward gave a lecture named ‘Dark Intervals, Mechanics and Magic: Animated Movement as the Illusion of Life’.

In this lecture he explored the specific dialectical relationship between animation as magic and animation as a process, as something that reveals the processes of its own making. Please see the CfH video archive to review this lecture.

Paul Ward is one of the leading scholars in the UK in the field of animation studies. He is currently Principal Lecturer in Animation at the Arts University College at Bournemouth and serves as the President of the international Society for Animation Studies [www.animationstudies.org]. Dr. Ward’s work focuses on the emergence of Animation Studies as an interdisciplinary field. His current research explores the interfaces between animation and a range of other cultural practices, including videogames, documentary/non-fiction filmmaking and computer-generated imagery. Furthermore Dr. Ward investigates the convergence/dialectic between ‘animated’ media, ‘live action’ media, as well as the history and theory of documentary practices. Paul Ward has published numerous articles, contributed to and written several books. His work has also appeared in scholarly journals such as the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television; Animation Journal and Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies.

Ward’s article ‘Some Thoughts on Theory-Practice Relationships in Animation Studies’ published in animation: an interdisciplinary journal, won the McLaren-Lambart Award for Best Scholarly Essay (in the field of Animation Studies) in 2008. Dr Ward has already marked the field of Animation and Documentary theory significantly and we are proud to be able to welcome him as our first CfH-Holland Animation Festival Fellow.

Upcoming Public Programme

March 27: Magic and Matter: An international Symposium

During the Holland Animation Festival, Paul Ward will have a personal programme, and participate in various festival events.

Festival Fellowship

This programme is designed to connect the Festival Fellow to a series of activities and workshops that will be jointly organized by the CFH, the Holland Animation Film Festival and the Department of Media & Culture Studies, to explore current developments in animation and documentaries, with respect to emerging animation studies in the Netherlands.

The festival fellowship scheme is an initiative designed by the Centre for the Humanities, to bring together researchers, practitioners, students, Utrecht citizens and others interested and to stimulate the discourse around the arts today.