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Palgrave Macmillan

Circus, Science and Technology

Dramatising Innovation

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Editors:
  1. Anna-Sophie Jürgens

    1. Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

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  • Brings together – for the first time – different scholarly perspectives on the facets of engineering and technology in circus contexts
  • Provides a rich account of the circus’ past, how it was and is formative for the present
  • Features contributions from performance and circus scholars, art and cultural historians, media and literature researchers and an engineer

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Performance and Technology (PSPT)

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xx
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  2. Circus Matters: Engineering, Imagineering and Popular Stages of Technology—Introduction

    • Anna-Sophie Jürgens
    Pages 1-12

  3. Engineered to Promote Awe: Circus (and) Bodies

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13
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    2. Engineers of Curiosity: The Barnum Era

      • Jane Goodall
      Pages 15-32

    3. Unreal Limbs: Erin Ball and the Extended Body in Contemporary Circus

      • Katie Lavers, Jon Burtt, with Erin Ball
      Pages 33-54

  4. Technological Invention: Engineering (on) the Circus Stage

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 55-55
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    2. Circus as Laboratory: Imagineering Legitimacy

      • Mark St Leon
      Pages 57-79

    3. Circus and Electricity: Staging Connexions Between Science and Popular Entertainments

      • Gillian Arrighi
      Pages 81-100

    4. Technologies of Risk, Fear and Fun: Human and Nonhuman Circus Performance

      • Peta Tait
      Pages 101-120

  5. Techno-Imaginaries: Imagineering Circus in Other Media

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 121-121
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    2. The Circus and the Magic Lantern: A Portfolio of Hand-Painted Mechanical Magic Lantern Slides

      • Martyn Jolly, Elisa deCourcy
      Pages 123-141

    3. The Circus and Technologies of Animation

      • Ruth Richards
      Pages 143-158

    4. Engineering Circus Enchantment: Automagic Technology and Electrifying Performances in Fiction

      • Anna-Sophie Jürgens, Robert C. Williamson
      Pages 159-183

  6. Back Matter

    Pages 185-189
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Keywords

About this book

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.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Anna-Sophie Jürgens

About the editor

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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