About the
Animation Duo.

Over the past six years Drs. Jorgelina Orfila & Francisco Ortega have collaborated as teachers and researchers working to catalyze an initiative in animation studies. Although the United States is at the forefront in the production of animated features, it is woefully lacking with respect to programs specialized in animation history and theory. Invested in establishing animation as an interdisciplinary area of study at Texas Tech University, they created a unique transdisciplinary course that explores the intersections between art history and animation in the 20th and 21st centuries.

They have now developed a multidisciplinary undergraduate certificate on Animation Studies for the Talkington College of Visual & Performing Arts in collaboration with Stacey Jocoy, PhD from the School of Music, and Rachel Hirshorn-Johnston, MFA from the School of Theater and Dance.



In February 2019 they created an Animation Studies chapter, the Animation Research Gang (ARG!), at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference (SWPACA) and organized the Animation and Public Engagement Symposium (APES) at its first-ever hosting outside the United Kingdom. APES 2019 attracted thirty-eight participants from ten countries to Texas Tech.

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Animation is inherently interdisciplinary: the animation-making process incorporates specialized knowledge from different fields of practice and knowledge (visual arts, film, music, performance) and animation itself is used in many STEM disciplines. Those using animation to foster education, health and wellbeing take advantage of the different stages and multiple skills involved in the animation-making process, as they offer many intervention and evaluation points. At the nexus of different fields of studies, animation offers myriad opportunities to engage and positively impact people belonging to different social and age groups and with different educational stories and cultural backgrounds.



A key component of this collaboration is the Animation-Making Workshops (AMW), which take advantage of the potential of animation-making as social practice and wellbeing. Inspired by the Healing Education Animation Research Therapy (HEART) organization in the United Kingdom, the AMW explore the usefulness of the animation-making process as a therapeutic and educational tool.

AMW have recently worked in partnership with the Burkhart Center for Autism Studies at Texas Tech University Research. In 2020, beneath the umbrella of the TTU NEA Research Lab, AMW will expand their scope of work to encompass elementary-age school populations, work with adult-age groups such as veterans affected by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and college students in the process of substance abuse rehabilitation.

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Jorgelina is Associate professor in 20th and 21st century Art History and Critical Theory at the School of Art, Texas Tech University. She earned undergraduate degrees in art history and museum studies in Argentina and was a Lampadia Fellow at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (1997-1999). She holds a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Maryland, College Park (2007). Jorgelina has authored articles on the historiography of Art History in the Interwar period and the Chester Dale Collection. DOWNLOAD HER CV

Francisco is Associate Professor in Graphic Design and Coordinator of the PhD Fine Arts program at the School of Art, Texas Tech University. He earned his BA and MA at the University of Texas, El Paso, and his PhD in Critical Studies and Artistic Practice at TTU (2008). A practicing artist and scholar, his interests include: Historical and Critical Perspectives in Animation, Game Design Theory and History, Graphic Design, and Interdisciplinarity in the Arts. DOWNLOAD HIS CV

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A Collaborative CV — Spring 2019

• Article: “Fantasyland or Wackyland? Animation and Surrealism in 1930s America,” Journal of Surrealism and the Americas General, Topics Issue, Fall 2019. (8000 words) Submission date: December 10, 2018. (Pending Publication, 2019)
• Workshop: In collaboration with the Burkhart Center: Animation workshop - pilot program with ASD patients (In process, 2019)
• Article: “Documents, Documentation, Documentaries,” M The Magazine of the Museum of Texas Tech University, Fall/Winter 2018, 30-33.
• Article: “De Top Cat a Don Gato: acerca del doblaje en animación” (From ‘Top Cat’ to ‘Don Gato’: Dubbing in Animation,” Con A de Animación (Journal of the Research Group on Animation, Art and Industry, Polytechnic University of Seville), (Spring 2018): 150-163.
• Paper: “Marvelous Historiography: The Case of Surrealism and Animation,” Winter School at the Graduate Academy and the Centre for Animation Studies of the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, “Doing Animation History: Exploring Challenges and New Visions in Writing Animation Histories.” Tübingen, Germany (March 2019)
• Paper: “The Effect Of Animation: Learning Novel Words In Children With Specific Language Impairment (SLI),” APES18 (Animation And Public Engagement Symposium) 2018, The Animation Academy, Loughborough University, UK, in conjunction with HEART (Healing Education Animation Research Therapy), Loughborough, U.K (May 2018)
• Paper: “Mind and Body Engagement: Enjoyment + Training through Animated Music Video Games,” APES18 (Animation And Public Engagement Symposium) 2018, The Animation Academy, Loughborough University, UK, in conjunction with HEART (Healing Education Animation Research Therapy), Loughborough, U.K (May 2018)
• Paper: “It's not the colle that makes Collage Animation,” 30th Annual Conference of the Society for Animation Studies (SAS) “Then, Now, Next,” Montreal, Canada. (June 2018)
• Paper: "Fantasia's 'Night on Bald Mountain:' Fantastic Horror in Disney's Early Long Feature Films," Scanner V, Animafest, Zagreb, Croatia. (June 2018)
• Paper: “If Truth be Told: Voice as Presence in Animated Interview Documentaries,” Southwest Popular/American Culture Association 39th Annual Conference, (Albuquerque, USA). (February 2018)
• Roundtable: “Seriously Funny: Animation, The Concealed Avant-Garde.” The panel included: Midhat Ajanovic (Sweden), Marco Bellano (Italy), Marcin Gizycki, and Stéphane Collignon (Belgium). Modernist Studies Association XIXth Annual Conference “Modernism Today,” Amsterdam, the Netherlands. (May 2017)
• Paper: “Psychotic and Then Some: Wackyland or the Meta-Fictional Dimension of American Cartoons.” Animafest Scanner IV, Zagreb, Croacia. (June 2017)
• Paper: “Yes, It Moves ...and It Talks: An Analysis of Voice in Anomalisa (2015)” 29th Annual Conference of the Society for Animation Studies (SAS)“ … And Yes It Moves,” (University of Padua, Italy). (July 2017)
• Paper: “Photographs + Movement: Breer’s and VanDerBeek’s Collage Animations,” XIth Triennial International Conference organized by IAWIS/AIERTI (International Association of Word and Image Studies), Lausanne University, Switzerland. (July 2017)
• Paper: “Mainstream Characters, Subaltern Voices: From ‘Top Cat’ to ‘Don Gato’, ” 28th Annual Conference of the Society of Animation Studies, “The Cosmos of Animation,” Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore. (June 2016)
• Paper: “Disney in the 1930s: Between High Art And Popular Culture,” Bridges across Cultures, The International Studies Institute (ISI Florence), Florence, Italy. (July 2015)
• Paper: “Disney Animation and Modern Art in the 1930s”, 103rd CAA Conference, College Art Association, New York City, NY. (2015)