Alan Cholodenko: Animation (Theory) as the Poematic
Posted on February 16th, 2009A Reply to the Cognitivists
This essay has two projects.
The first is intrinsic to the very question of what constitutes legitimate scholarly inquiry in the study of film and of animation, marking out something ostensibly especially contentious in and for the study of the latter: theory. Proceeding from two related queries-Why theory? And why animation theory?-the paper offers responses based in and on my own theory-driven and theory-focused work.1
The second project constitutes a reply to the cognitivists, or more particularly, those scholars who propound and promote a cognitive theory of film and especially of animation, notably, those who have wielded cognitivism as a weapon of total destruction against my work. Given the nature of the paper, this reply is of a general and in any case partial character.
Let me pause to say: I ordinarily do not respond to criticism of my work. But given where these criticisms have been published and their purport, I felt I have had to make an exception to my rule.
