‘The Legacy of Watership Down: Animals, Adaptation, Animation’ started as an interdisciplinary academic symposium that took place at University of Warwick on Saturday 10th November 2018. It marked the 40th anniversary of the release of the 1978 film adaptation of Watership Down, and fostered academic discourse on the lasting cultural impact of this landmark of British animation.
Although the symposium is now over, the discussion continues via the official symposium Twitter account @watershipdown40. You can view live tweets from the day via the hashtag #watershipdown40, and you can also read a detailed report of the symposium on the blog of the Fantasy/Animation research network.
A collection of essays about Watership Down – comprising of research presented at the symposium and new work – will be published in 2022 by Bloomsbury as part of the Animation: Key Films/Filmmakers series. Click below for info and to pre-order Watership Down: Perspectives On and Beyond Animated Violence.
About the organiser
Dr Catherine (Cat) Lester is Lecturer in Film and Television at the University of Birmingham. Her primary research interests are children’s cinema, animation, and their intersections with the horror genre. Her PhD thesis on children’s horror films was completed at Warwick in 2016 and is the basis of her monograph Horror Films for Children: Fear and Pleasure in American Cinema, published by Bloomsbury in 2021.
This Watership Down project was a result of her interest in inappropriately horrifying children’s films as well as the fact that she has two pet rabbits, Hazel and Gizmo (below). They are as adorable as their namesakes but neither as violent nor courageous.
The Legacy of Watership Down 