Dong for Movements, Hua for Paintings: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Investigating Chinese Donghua

Abstract

This article questions a longstanding definition of animation that lacks aspects of cultural diversity in part; it reexamines the socio-cultural formation of modern animation from less known regions of China and investigates Chinese animation known as donghua (动画). The goal is to demonstrate the transdisciplinary nature of donghua acquired through dynamic interactions in this heterogeneous site of production of visual culture in modern China. The author suggests a concept-based framework to more accurately describe animation in China composed of three specific dimensions of donghua: translinguality, transnationality and transmediality. To conclude, the author reveals that the study of donghua helps generate a more widely defined spectrum of the now divergent 'cultural field' of 'animations' and therefore leads to a 'translocal imagining of animation' appropriate for today's increasingly mobile world.

Contemporizing the National Style in Chinese Animation: The Case of Nezha (2019)

“…The crux of Du’s (2019) work is that Chinese animation was always/already international : in animation and projection as technologies, in the aesthetic influences upon it, but also the widespread influences it had upon other countries’ animation across the 20th century. Kim (2018) makes a parallel analysis of Chinese animation as intrinsically ‘transnational’. Du (2019: 32) contends that these aspects need to be acknowledged and celebrated, rather than ‘disavowed’.…”

Introduction to the Special Issue: New Perspectives on Animation Historiography

“…Second, Peters’s contribution shows how the digitalization of animated films, production materials and documents related to the production, distribution, exhibition and reception of animation has been instrumental for animation historians, not only making archives more accessible and searchable, but also enabling various digital humanities methods (Heftberger, 2018). Third, Peters’s article and similar linguistic inquiries for other languages (Crafton, 2011; Kim, 2018) demonstrate the insights that a detailed diachronic analysis of animation-specific terminology can offer into the history of cultural conceptions of animation and their negotiation by various stakeholders. Observing, for example, the German language, mainly two hypernyms refer to animated films, the older term ‘Trickfilm’ (‘trick film’) and the younger term ‘Animationsfilm’ (‘animation film’).…”