Animal, Animate: The Post-human and Non-human of Contemporary Animation

Margaret Flinn; assistant professor of French and media and cinema studies; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Drawing from Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (2007), Christian Volckmann’s Renaissance (2006), Sylvain Chomet’s Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003), Michel Ocelot’s Kirikou et la Sorcière (1998), and Luc Besson’s Arthur et les minimoys (2006), Flinn will explore how animated films in the French-speaking world expose the problematic status of the “human” in contemporary thought and representation.

Flinn’s research focuses on film, art, and politics as intersecting cultural discourses. She is currently completing a book entitled “Bodies in Space: The Social Architecture of French Cinema, 1929–39” on the construction, representation, and experience of cinematographic spaces and places.

Sponsored by the Ph.D. in Literature Program