[Commlist] New book: Discussing Disney

We would like to announce a recent publication from John Libbey 
Publishing, which we hope will be of interest.

*Discussing Disney***

*Edited by Amy M. Davis***

*_https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/9780861967193/discussing-disney/_**__*

*Receive a 20% discount online:*

*CSLS2020*

/Discussing Disney/(grown out of a conference of the same name) is a 
collection of 12 papers on topics which, though diverse in scope, all 
relate back to one another through their connection to Disney. As the 
field of Disney Studies continues to grow and evolve, those working 
within and contributing to it come from a range of backgrounds, 
including History, Myth Studies, Film Studies, Gender Studies, and 
Musicology (to name just a few), and therefore examine the outputs of 
the Disney company—and the company itself—in diverse ways.

/Discussing Disney/seeks to continue the evolution of Disney Studies as 
an academic field that has now evolved beyond a discourse that merely, 
to quote Eric Smoodin (1994), “...[sought] to complicate the notions and 
uses of Disney discourse that currently make their way to the general 
public through the popular media”. Though this was an important early 
step in Disney Studies, as it found it necessary to justify its 
legitimacy within the academy, in the intervening quarter-century, 
Disney Studies has established itself as a field of Animation Studies 
(which, simultaneously, has established itself as a branch of Film and 
Television Studies, as well as Cultural Studies), and is now recognized 
widely as a valid subject of academic enquiry in its own right. Film 
Studies as a whole—and Disney Studies as part of that—has also evolved 
in such a way that it has moved forward from insisting upon an overtly 
political (and therefore inherently biased) stance, and has taken up a 
more historically-based and/or cultural studies-based, 
politically-neutral approach that seeks to contextualize its subject in 
terms of the conditions in which the company’s various outputs—animated 
shorts and films, theme park attractions, television shows, books, 
music, merchandising, and the like—have been produced, as well as 
understanding the audience for whom these were made initially. This is 
not to say that the field ignores politics—far from it—but rather that 
it uses political history and political theory as academic basis, rather 
than as a position from which to debate and opine.

By looking at Disney from some of its many angles—the history and the 
persona of its founder, a selection of its films (from the blockbuster 
successes to the less than successful), its approaches to animation, its 
branding and fandom, and the ways that it has been understood and 
reinterpreted within popular culture—it is hoped that /Discussing 
Disney/ offers its readers (and the field of Disney Studies) a more 
holistic understanding of a company that is arguably one of the most 
important forces within culture—popular or otherwise—within (so far) the 
Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.

*Amy M. Davis*is a lecturer in Film History at the University of Hull, 
where she teaches (amongst other things) American Animation History and 
Disney Studies. She is the author of /Good Girls & Wicked Witches: Women 
in Disney’s Feature Animation/ and /Handsome Heroes & Vile Villains: Men 
in Disney’s Feature Animation/, in addition to numerous papers on 
Disney, Hollywood Animation, and Horror.

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