Footnote #74 - Deconstructivism

The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!

Following the recent podcast episode on Space Ghost Coast to Coast (Mike Lazzo, 1994-2008), Alex takes the reins for Fantasy/Animation Footnote 74, taking Chris through Jacques Derrida and deconstructivism as a philosophical doctrine, which embraces a way of interpretive thinking that is loosely tasked with exposing the lack of meaning within meaning itself and pushing against the clear resolution of a thesis. Topics include the erasure of meaning as reliant on other sets or circuits of meaning; signifiers and chains of signification, and the role of the deconstructivist in reflecting on and exposing those chains; deconstructive animation as a generic deep structure of animation and the cartoon’s history and comedy of anti-illusionism; and how deconstructivist analysis as a reading strategy might work to unpack animation’s complex relationship to live-action and, ultimately, to itself.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**

**As featured on MillionPodcast’s Best 10 UK Animation Podcasts and Best 60 Movie Podcasts in the UK**

Suggested Readings

• Cholodenko, Alan, ed. 1991. The Illusion of Life: Essays on Animation. Sydney: Power Publications.

• Cholodenko, Alan, ed. 2007. The Illusion of Life 2: More Essays on Animation. Sydney: Power Publications.

• Derrida, Jacques. 1997 [1967]. Of Grammatology. Translated by G.C. Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

• Metz, Christian. 1974. Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema. New York: Oxford University Press.

• Wells, Paul. 2002. Animation: Genre and Authorship. London: Wallflower Press.