Cinematic Landscapes: Raising Young People'sAwareness about Outdoor Spaces.

Mina Rezaei (UC Davis)
Patsy Eubanks Owens (University of California, Davis)

1. What topic you would like to address?
   

literary geographies emerged in the realm of geography by the epistemological and theoretical turns in the fields of human and cultural geographies . Texts, films, or other forms of media which focus on place, space nature or etc. can be included in literary geographies. One group of people, who outdoor spaces is important in their growth development is young people. This paper, explores how animes and animations can be used as tools for raising children's awareness about the issues which are important in their lives by reviewing two animations in two different contexts. The first one is Tangled(2010) by Disney(US) and the second one is Arrietty(2010) by Studio Ghibli(Japan).

Method for this research is visual interpretive research. The paper first reviews the ideas of environmentalism in the first decade of twenty first century, then a background of representing landscapes in animations and animes will be explained, after that the two films will be reviewed to explore how east and west differs or resemble to each other in portraying landscape and its relation to young people. Finally some recommendations about how animations can influence young people’s knowledge and experience of outdoor spaces will be discussed.

Why this is important for discussion and reflection at EDRA50?

This paper is important since outdoor spaces and nature are important in youth character development. Also using literary geographies to raise people's awareness is an interdisciplinary new concept, which worth working.

Why you are the right person to prepare and make this presentation?

I have been working on representations of young people in the media since two years ago and have conference papers, journal papers and a bookchapter in this regard. My recent publication is "Rezaei, Mina, Golravesh Fekry Negin, Habibi, Seyyed Mohsen. “Representation of Urban Female teenagers in Iranian Cinema”. In Olson, D(Ed.). The Child in the World Cinema (pp.169-195), Lexington , Maryland, 2018.