Call for Papers

The “… And Yet It Moves!” theme invites delegates to focus on the nature of animation, by suggesting that movement alone is not enough to define this medium, even if movement still retains a crucial importance to animation.

Papers on other topics, falling into the area of the Animation Studies in the broadest possible sense, are also welcome.

20-minute paper presentations, as well as to 5-minute micro talks will be accepted.

Animation scholars, researchers and professionals can send their proposals, which will be blind reviewed by a panel of SAS members. However, in order to participate, it will be necessary to be a member of the SAS for 2017: the call for papers will close on December 30, 2016.


The SAS – Society for Animation Studies invites the submission of paper and panel proposals for its 29th Annual Conference. The event will be held at the University of Padova, Italy, on July 3-7, 2017. The conference chair will be Marco Bellano, PhD, teacher of History of Animation.

As usual, the general topic of the SAS Conference will be Animation in its broadest sense. Contributions about the history, theory and practice of this art will be welcome, as well as studies on interactions and exchanges between animation and other disciplines.

The 29th Annual Conference, however, will also focus on specific themes. Contribution on such themes will be gathered together in special panel sessions; anyway, it is by no means mandatory to submit a proposal only about these topics, in order to be considered in the selection of the conference delegate, and we actually encourage the submission of panel proposals about more topics.

  • The first main theme is related with the conference title, “… And Yet It Moves!”: a special homage to Galileo Galilei, but also a nod to Movement in Animation. Movement retains a crucial importance for animation, but movement alone is not enough to define this medium. Prospective delegates can approach this issue from any point of view.
  • The second theme celebrates A Century of Full-Length Animated Features: the now lost El apóstol, by Quirino Cristiani, was released in 1917. The focus will then be on the history of full-length animated features, but of course it is not limited to this genre: another recommended area of study is the shift from the “short format” to the “long format”, and its impact on the various languages of animation. The relationship between animation and cinema can also be considered and commented.
  • More celebrative sections will remember the centenaries of two masters of European animation: the Russian Fyodor Khitruk (1917-2012) and the Czech Jiří Brdečka (1917-1982). Contributions on their life, works, context and legacy will be very welcome.
  • Finally, the Conference will include a session on Education to Animation: we will explore the current status, results, training methods and perspectives of animation schools in Italy and worldwide.

Four modes of presentation will be allowed

  • Talk: individual presentation, 20 minutes long;
    * individual talks about a specific topic (either from the ones suggested above or from received proposals) will be gathered in the same panel, so that each panel will last up to one hour and 20 minutes, plus discussion time;
  • Group Talk: two to four speakers, 40 minutes long (in total);
  • Panel: collective proposal of 3 to 4 talks, all focusing on a common topic;
  • Microtalk: individual presentation, 5 minutes long (to be grouped with other microtalks in a special session; this mode is recommended for short descriptions of works in progress, announcements and the like).

Proposals for both individual and group presentations need to be approximately no longer than 750 words. Microtalk proposals cannot exceed approximately 350 words. Proposals for panel topics should stay within 500 words: in addition to this max.-500- word topic proposal, they should also include all the single talk proposals of their members (‘subproposals’), collecting everything in a single file.

In order to submit a proposal, please prepare two documents (please use .doc or .docx file formats). The first one should contain the title of the proposal, its chosen mode of presentation (individual talk/group presentation/panel/microtalk), and the proposal itself, plus a few keywords of its topic, without any other information. A second document should list full name, affiliation and a short biography (500 words) of the proposer(s), plus the title of the proposal and its mode of presentation. Both documents must be sent as attachments to one single e-mail message, which should be addressed to sas2017.conference@unipd.it and declare its content in the object of the e-mail in this way: “Panel/Paper/Group Presentation/Microtalk Proposal for SAS 2017 – Main keyword(s) of the proposal – Surname of the main proposer”.

Please note that, as of the time of the Conference, you will have to be a member of the SAS. In order to know how to join SAS, please refer to this page: https://www.animationstudies.org/v3/member-join/