This book explores the circus as a site in and through which science and technology are represented in popular culture. Across eight chapters written by leading scholars – from fields as varied as performance and circus studies, art, media and cultural history, and engineering – the book discusses to what extent the engineering of circus and performing bodies can be understood as a strategy to promote awe, how technological inventions have shaped circus and the cultures it helps constitute, and how much of a mutual shaping this is. What kind of cultural and aesthetic effects does engineering in circus contexts achieve? How do technological inventions and innovations impact on the circus? How does the link between circus and technology manifest in representations and interpretations – imaginaries – of the circus in other media and popular culture?
Circus, Science and Technology examines the ways circus can provide a versatile frame for interpreting our relationship with technology.
Table of Content
1. Chapter 1: Circus Matters: Engineering, Imagineering and Popular Stages of Technology: Introduction; Anna-Sophie Jürgens.- 2. Chapter 2: Engineers of Curiosity: the Barnum Era; Jane Goodall.- 3. Chapter 3: Unreal Limbs: Erin Ball and The Extended Body in Contemporary Circus; Katie Lavers and Jon Burtt, with Erin Ball.- 4. Chapter 4: Circus as Laboratory: Imagineering Legitimacy; Mark St Leon.- 5. Chapter 5: Circus and Electricity: Staging Connexions between Science and Popular Entertainments; Gillian Arrighi.- 6. Chapter 6: Technologies of Risk, Fear and Fun: Human and Nonhuman Circus Performance; Peta Tait.- 7. Chapter 7: The Circus and the Magic Lantern: A Portfolio of Hand-Painted Mechanical Magic Lantern Slides; Martyn Jolly and Elisa de Courcy.- 8. Chapter 8: The Circus and Technologies of Animation; Ruth Richards.- 9. Chapter 9: Engineering Circus Enchantment: Automagic Technology and Electrifying Performances in Fiction; Anna-Sophie Jürgens and Robert C. Williamson.
About the author
Anna-Sophie Jürgens is an Assistant Professor at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science. She was an Alexander-von-Humboldt Fellow at the Australian National University, Australia, and the Free University of Berlin, Germany, from 2017 to 2020. Her research draws upon circus fiction, the history of (violent) clowns, and comic performance and technology in culture.
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