Professor Suzanne Buchan

Suzanne’s research and teaching work with interdisciplinary methodologies to contribute to addressing critically the evolving relationship between animated media, creative industries and social change.

Her research investigates the pervasive nature of animation in a wide range of moving image culture and positions animation as central to contemporary debates and as a primary driver of the digital shift and resulting changes in cultural metaphors.

She is also interested in animation's position in media convergence and new screen technologies and the implications of digital media for the animated form. She has published widely including Pervasive Animation (2013), The Quay Brothers. Into a Metaphysical Playroom (2011), Animated Worlds (2005), journal articles and chapters in books. Suzanne is founder and Editor-in-Chief of animation: an interdisciplinary journal.

Suzanne's PhD supervisory expertise includes: History, Theory and Aesthetics of Animation and Digital Screen Arts; Film Studies; Spectatorship, Ethics and Philosophy of Perception; Feminist Film Theory; Experimental and Avant-garde Film History, Theory and Aesthetics; Special Effects and CGI; Curatorial Practice; James Joyce and Modernist Literature; Curatorial Practices.

Suzanne is also a curator and a consultant for international film festivals, museums and broadcast media.

Her exhibitions, among others, include Animierte Wunderwelten/Animated Wonderworlds (2015) and Spacetricks: Trickraum (2005) at the Museum of Design Zurich, which were both co-curated with Andres Janser. She was a founding member and, for close to a decade, co-director of the Fantoche International Animation Film Festival, Baden, Switzerland and has served on juries at international festivals: ARS Electronica (Linz), Leipzig International Documentary and Animation Film Festival, AURORA Film Festival, and VIDEOEX Experimental Film Festival.

• £36,540 total budget for Pervasive Animation symposium at Tate Modern, March 2-4, 2007 (including Arts Council England award £19,100, Brunel University £2,000 and £9,000 in kind from Tate Modern).
• £20,356 to stage the Spacetricks exhibition at the James Hockey Gallery, Farnham (2006).
• £219, 901 Science Research Investment Fund (SRIF) award for the Animation Research Centre Archive (2005).
• £5,000 UK Film Council Publications Fund to develop journal proposal (2003).

Professor Buchan’s research positions animation as central to contemporary debates in visual culture, and as a primary driver of the digital shift and resulting changes in cultural metaphors.

Her ongoing 'Pervasive Animation’ research programme investigates how animation infiltrates a wide band of creative and commercial practice, disciplines and platforms that impact and influence academic, artistic, political and cultural capital agendas, which in turn affect people in their daily lives.

Publications

• See also RCA Research Repository.

Books:

• Buchan, S. and Janser, A. (2015). Animierte Wunderwelten / Animated Wonderworlds. (eds) Zurich: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich.
• Buchan, S. (2013). Pervasive Animation. An AFI Film Reader (Ed.). New York: Routledge.
• Buchan, S. (2011). The Quay Brothers: Into a Metaphysical Playroom, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Buchan, S. (2011) ed., Animated 'Worlds'. London: John Libbey Publishing, 2006

Chapters and journal articles (selection):

• Cooray, M. A. E., Buchan, S., Lee, J. C., & Amiruddin, A. S. (2025). A comparative legal analysis of virtual child imagery in anime and manga: balancing legality and creativity. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2025.2571037
• Buchan, S. (2020). Memoria rerum: Animated Materiality, Memory and Amnesia. In: M. van Gageldonk, L. Munteán, A. Shobeiri, Eds., Animation and Memory, Palgrave Animation series, Cham: Switzerland: Springer Nature Switzerland., pp 23-44.
• Buchan, S. (2020) Pervasive, Disruptive and Useful Animation. In: S. Zielinski and C. Merewether, eds., Art in the 21st Century. Reflections and Provocations. Hong Kong: Osage., pp 112-24.
• Buchan, S. (2019). (Re)Claiming Cultural Identity: The NFB's Eskimo Legends and Inuit Animation from Cape Dorset. In: J. Marchessault, W. Straw, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Cinema. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp 83-103.
• Buchan, S. (2018) The Animated Female Body, Feminism(s) and ‘Mushi’. In: V. Smith and N. Hamlyn, eds., Expanded and Experimental Animation. Current Perspectives and New Directions. London: Palgrave MacMillan, pp 203-230.
• Buchan, S. (2016) Der animierte Mensch / Animating the Human. In: S. Buchan and J. Janser, eds., Animierte Wunderwelten / Animated Wonderworlds. Zurich: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, pp 9-29
• Buchan, S. (2014) Short Circuits and Footnote Traces: The Quay Brothers', in: The Quay Brothers' Universum. (2014) Amsterdam: EYE Filmmuseum.
• Buchan, S. ('2014). Animation, in Theory,. In: K. Beckman, ed., Animating Film Theory, Duke University Press, pp 111-127.
• Buchan, S. (2013). A Cinema of Apprehension: A Third Entelechy of the Vitalist Machine. In: S. Buchan, ed., Pervasive Animation. An AFI Film Reader. New York: Routledge, pp 143-171.
• Buchan, S. (2013). Pervasive Animation: An Introduction. In: S. Buchan, ed., Pervasive Animation. An AFI Film Reader. New York: Routledge, pp 1-21.
• Buchan, S. (2013). Die Quay Brothers oder: ‘Die Produktivität des Fehlers'. In: Montage AV, Zeitschrift für Theorie und Geschichte audiovisueller Kommunikation. 22 (2), pp. 17-3.
• Buchan, S. (2012). Theatrical Cartoon Comedy: From Animated Portmanteau to the risus purus. In: A. Horton & J. Rapf, eds., Wiley Companion to Film Comedy. Malden, MA: Wiley & Sons / Blackwell, pp. 521-543.
• Buchan, S. (2011). Ghosts in the Machine: Experiencing Animation. In: G. Hilty, ed., Watch Me Move. The Animation Show, London: Merrell, pp 28-38.
• Buchan, S. (2011). A Metaphysics of Space: The Quay Brothers Atmospheric Cosmogonies. In: L. Weinthal, ed., Toward a New Interior: An Anthology of Interior Design Theory. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, pp 527-545.
• Buchan, S. (2011). Tricky Spaces: Animation, Installation and Spatial Politics. In: B. Wagner, G. Grausgruber, eds., Tricky Women. Marburg: Schüren Verlag, pp 134-144.
• Buchan, S. (2010). A Curious Chapter in the Manual of Animation': Stan VanDerBeek's Animated Spatial Politics', in: animation: an interdisciplinary journal 5(2), pp 173-196.

Curated exhibitions

• (2015-16) Animierte Wunderwelten / Animated Wonderworlds (co-curator Andres Janser), Museum of Design Zurich, Switzerland
• (2012) Bob Godfrey's Britain, Animation Research Centre, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK
• (2008) Bob Godfrey: Satire, Surrealism, Sex, The Gallery, The Arts Institute at Bournemouth, UK
• (2005) Spacetricks: Trickraum (co-curator Andres Janser) Museum of Design Zurich, Switzerland.

Keynotes, Invited Lectures (IL)
Conference Papers (CP) and Workshops (a selection)

• Keynote: 'Persuasive Animation', Keynote Society For Animation Studies 'Animate Energies' conference, Tulane University, June 2021
• 'Pervasive, Disruptive and Useful Animation, Artistic Research Masterclass GLOBE PLAYHOUSE - EXPANDED ANIMATION WORLDS, Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, Babelsberg, Germany September 2020 (IL)
• Keynote: 'Death to Animation! The Dick Arnall Collection: Phoenix of the UK Animation Renaissance' at Doing Animation History: Exploring Challenges and New Visions in Writing Animation Histories, Centre for Animation Studies, Tübingen University (DE), March 2019
• Keynote: 'memoria rerum: Animated Materiality, Memory and Amnesia' International conference Animation and Memory, Nijmegen University, Netherlands, June 2017
• 'White Cube / Dark Cube: Curating Animated Wonderworlds', Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference Atlanta, March 2016 (CP)
• 'The Aesthetic of the Mistake in Digital and Analogue Animation', Symposium Zur Ästhetik des Gemachten in Animation und Comic: Interdisziplinäres Symposium deutschsprachiger Animations und Comicforschung, Tagungszentrum der VolkswagenStiftung | Schloss Herrenhausen Hannover, November 2016 (IL)
• '(Re)Claiming Aboriginal Identity: Inuit Animation from Cape Dorset to Quickdraw' (CP), and Panel Chair, Animation and Politics 1: Aesthetics and Theory , Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Montreal, March 2015
• ‘"I See You": Agency and Empathy in Animation’, Life Remade: The Politics and Aesthetics of Animation, Simulation and Rendering Conference, Birkbeck Institute of the Humanities, London July 2015 (IL)
• 'Abjection, the Performative and Creativity in the Works of Suzan Pitt, Tabaimo and Miwa Matreyek’, Society for Animation Studies Conference, University of Canterbury, July 2015 (CP)
• 'Behind, Beside, In Front: An Aesthetics of Empathy in Nag Ansorge's CERY Collage Animation Films', Section d'histoire et esthétique du cinéma, Université de Lausanne, Swiss Cinemathéque, Lausanne April 2014 (IL)
• 'The Quay Brothers: 'Liberation of the Mistake'', Public Lecture, Yokohama, July 2014 (IL)
• 'Animation Theory Now', Japan Society for Animation Studies, Tokyo, July (IL, W)
• 'A Special Effect and its Affect: The 'Problem' of Animation', The Magic of Special Effects. Cinema – Technology – Reception Conference, University of Montreal, November 2013 (CP)
• 'Pervasive Animation', Conference 'Digital Expanded Animation: Mapping an Unlimited Landscape, University of Hagenberg / ARS Electronica, September 2013 (IL)
• 'Theatrical Cartoon Comedy: From Animated Portmanteau to Beckett's risus purus', Society for Cinema & Media Studies conference Boston March 2012 (CP)
• 'Pervasive Animation: Locus, Technique, Style', Enchanted Drawing - Animation as Imaging Culture. Aesthetics, Epistemology and Popularisation symposium, Humboldt University Berlin, March 2012 (IL)
• Keynote lecture, AG Animation der Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft e.V. und der Arbeitsstelle für Graphische Literatur der Universität Hamburg, November 2012

In her management and leadership of staff research in previous roles, she made significant contributions to her universities’ research assessments (RAE 2001 & 2008 and REF 2014 & 2020).

Suzanne’s academic service includes scholarly peer review for journals and publishers (University of California Press, Routledge, Palgrave).

Research funding evaluation includes:

• Membership of the AHRC Peer Review College (2003-2016) and AHRB External Assessor (2001–3)
• AHRC Strategic Reviewer's group (2013-14)
• Panel Chair for the AHRC’s Videogames Networking Scheme (2013), and its Collaborative Doctoral Awards Scheme (2011).
• She is a reviewer for the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF).

Suzanne serves on selection committees and juries for film funding and at international film and moving image festivals, such as:

• Swiss Federal Office of Culture
• ARS Electronica (Linz)
• Leipzig International Documentary and Animation Film Festival
• AURORA Film Festival (Norwich)
• VIDEOEX Experimental Film Festival(Zurich)