The Legacy of Watership Down: Animals, Adaptation, Animation

Saturday 10th November 2018

Wolfson Research Exchange, The Library (3rd Floor), University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL

08:30-09:00 Registration

09:00-09:10 Opening Remarks

09:10-10:10 Keynote Address Chris Pallant (Canterbury Christ Church University), with Nigel and Klive Humberstone – ‘Studying Watership Down: Revisiting the Warren at 40’

10:10-10:15 Comfort Break

10:15-11:15 Panel 1: Production and Reception James Chapman (University of Leicester) and Llewella Chapman (University of East Anglia) – ‘Troubles With Bunnies: Film Finances And The Production Of Watership Down’ Emily Fussell (BBFC) – The Classification History of Watership Down

11:15-11:35 Morning Refreshments

11:35-13:05 Panel 2: Animals and Anthropomorphism Lisa Mullen (Worcester College, Oxford University) – ‘Political Animals: Utopianism and praxis in Watership Down and Animal Farm’ Noel Brown (Liverpool Hope University) – ‘“If They Catch You, They Will Kill You”: Animals in 1970s British Children’s Cinema’ Hollie Adams (Independent researcher) – ‘Watership Down’s Exodus of Animals: Animal Displacement in Film and Literature inspired by the animated movie’ Rachel Grider (North Dakota State University) – ‘Bilingual Rabbits, Bilingual Readers: The Lapine Substrate of Adams’ Watership Down’

13:05-13:50 Lunch

13:50-15:20 Panel 3: Generic Soundscapes and Landscapes Paul Mazey (University of Bristol) – ‘“English pastoral melodies”: the traditions and connotations of Angela Morley’s musical score for Watership Down’ Leanne Weston (University of Warwick) – ‘“I know now. A terrible thing is coming.”: Watership Down, Music and/as Horror’ Matt Denny (University of Warwick) – ‘“The Field… The Field… It’s Covered in Blood!”: Watership Down as Folk Horror’ Dawn Keetley (Lehigh University) – ‘The “Man Thing”: The Agency of Things in Watership Down and the Folk Horror Tradition’

15:20-15:40 Afternoon Refreshments

15:40-16:55 Panel 4: Animation, Ethics and the Aesthetics of Violence Sam Summers (University of Sunderland) – ‘Prince with a Thousand Faces: Shifting Art Styles and the Depiction of Violence in Watership Down’ Josh Schulze (University of Warwick) - ‘Drawing Blood: The Ethics of Animated Violence in Watership Down (1978)’ James Walters (University of Birmingham) – ‘Lessons unlearnt? Violence, fantasy and ethics in Watership Down’

16:55-17:00 Comfort Break

17:00-18:00 Panel 5: Death and Mourning Douglas Leatherland (Durham University) – ‘“They’re only dead rabbits”: The Question of Sentimentality and Representations of Rabbit Death in the Novel and Film Versions of Watership Down’ Catherine Sadler (University of Hull) – ‘A radical grief: Mourning Hazel-Rah’

18:00 Closing Remarks / End