It’s been painstakingly organized by two honest-to-God Shrek scholars, Dr. Sam Summers (author of DreamWorks Animation: Intertextuality and Aesthetics in Shrek and Beyond) and Dr. Lilly Husbands, who have assembled 12 academics from across the world to, and I think this is a technical term, absolutely go off about a fictional ogre.
My phone is inches from my face as “You Ain’t Never Seen a Donkey Fly!: Shrek’s Complicated Rejection of Disney” begins from an American academic, who has finally gotten the hang of Zoom and sets the table for the day (night? morning?) by giving a contextual overview of when Shrek was unleashed on the world—less than two months before 9/11, completely out of spite, arguably patient zero for a generation of kid’s films whose humor is more directed at their parents than them.
backstory from June: An Entire Academic Conference Is Being Devoted To The Wonders Of ‘Shrek’
the conference also has a twitter account