Understanding Animation from an Intercultural Perspective

Description

The Teaching Development Grant Understanding Animation from an Intercultural Perspective is an international “E-Course Exchange” project designed to allow active cultural and knowledge exchange between students from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) and University of Algarve (UAlg), Portugal, who work together in remotely via virtual learning environments. This project is rooted in the Project Leader (PI) and Co-Leader’s (Co-I) combined knowledge and experience of teaching, research and practice in the history, ontology, and aesthetics of animation. SM2228 Understanding Animation is a course offered by the PI at SCM/CityU. It provides an introduction to the global history, theory, forms and styles of animation that have emerged since the introduction of cinema. With examples drawn from animations created in all parts of the world, the course offers an ideal vehicle to provide expanded opportunities for ideas and knowledge exchange with overseas students and their teacher who are studying and teaching a similar course. The project will be held in Semester A 2021/22, with three lecture-based classes of SCM’s Understanding Proposal No. STDG20B0142 Animation co-taught by the Co-I via Zoom. Three classes of her History and Analysis of Animated Images course at UAlg will in turn be co-taught online by the PI. Students from both universities will then be grouped across locations to collaboratively and remotely work on a video essay assignment. This coursework project is designed to challenge students to compare and contrast their own, culturally specific understandings of animation, forcing them to engage with differing viewpoints on a peer-to-peer level and critically reflect on their own preconceived notions, and to synthesize this intercultural negotiation in the context of academic enquiry through the production of a collaborative video essay. Blending both traditional and technology-based teaching and learning methods, this TDG project helps to transform the social distancing of the pandemic into a unique opportunity for more effective, collaborative, and international education. It leads to an intercultural academic exchange of knowledge and experience, and the discovery-led creation of new knowledge in the field of animation studies and animation history. The findings of this experimental teaching and learning project will form the basis of a scholarly paper for conference presentation and publication in a peerreviewed academic journal. The best resulting student works will be shown to the public and submitted to student conferences and festivals.