POLITICS — all episodes — Fantasy/Animation

Episode 119 - Arab Animation (1937-2015) (with Omar Sayfo)

Special guest Dr Omar Sayfo joins Chris and Alex for Episode 119 of the podcast, which features a rundown of Arab Animation covering a range of cartoons from Egypt, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates, alongside a discussion of Omar’s recent book Arab Animation: Images of Identity (2021). Omar is an Affiliated Researcher in the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON) at Utrecht University, and a researcher at the Avicenna Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, who has published articles in animation: an interdisciplinary journal, Media Industries Journal and The Journal of Popular Culture, as well as chapters in a number of edited collections.

Episode 113 - Czech Animation (1946-2011) (with Adam Whybray)

For this brief survey of the politics and pleasures of Czech animation, Alex and Chris are joined by special guest Dr Adam Whybray, who lectures in Film Studies at the University of Suffolk and who is also the author of The Art of Czech Animation: A History of Political Dissent and Allegory (London: Bloomsbury, 2020).

Episode 104 - Speed Racer (Lana Wachowski & Lilly Wachowski, 2008) (with Tim Robey)

Strap in for Episode 104 of the podcast as the thrill ride that is Lilly and Lana Wachowski’s Speed Racer (2008) provides the focus for this latest instalment in all its unwieldy and unruly CG glory. Chris and Alex’s special guest for this episode is Tim Robey, renowned film critic and author who has written widely on all kinds of cinema for The Daily Telegraph for over the last 20 years.

PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantAugust 22, 2022POLITICS, TECHNOLOGY, DIGITAL, VISUAL EFFECTS, HYBRIDITY, FILM STYLEComment

Episode 102 - Mothra (Ishirō Honda, 1961) (with Alex Davidson)

Chris and Alex take their first visit to the Japanese kaiju genre for Episode 102 of the podcast thanks to Toho studio’s 1961 feature Mothra (Ishirō Honda, 1961), a film that kickstarted the longstanding Mothra monster movie franchise.

PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantJuly 25, 2022JAPAN, MONSTER, BLOCKBUSTER, POLITICS, ALLEGORY, NATIONALComment

Episode 77 - The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012) (with Tarja Laine)

The first instalment of The Hunger Games (2012) franchise, directed by Gary Ross, provides the focus of Episode 77 of the podcast, which looks at the film’s connections to ethics, rationality and affect, and what structures our emotional engagement with its narrative of totalitarian systems and panoptic visions. Joining Chris and Alex to examine the immersive world of Panem is Dr Tarja Laine, Assistant Professor in Film Studies at the University of Amsterdam and author of the new monograph Emotional Ethics of The Hunger Games (2021), as well as the books Bodies in Pain: Emotion and the Cinema of Darren Aronofsky (2015), Feeling Cinema: Emotional Dynamics in Film Studies (2011) and Shame and Desire: Emotion, Intersubjectivity, Cinema (2007).

PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantJuly 5, 2021ETHICS, CGI, WORLDS, TECHNOLOGY, NATURE, POLITICSComment

Episode 42 - Wizards (Ralph Bakshi, 1977) (Live @ Cinema Museum)

Join Chris and Alex for a discussion of the animated high fantasy epic Wizards (Ralph Bakshi, 1977), recorded in front of a live audience at the Cinema Museum in Kennington, London in January 2020. Conceived by animator Ralph Bakshi, Wizards is a counter-cultural marvel of the 1970s, one that blends a series of innovative animation styles with a story designed to stick two fingers up at the man with its heady mixture of psychedelia, allegory and fantasy.