Anna‐Sophie Jürgens
Biographic Data
| ID | 5871472 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anna‐Sophie Jürgens |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anna‐Sophie |
| FAMILY NAME | Jürgens |
| SIGNATURE | JÜRGENS A S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Australian National University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7347-2488 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The ‘glam clown’: Couture, clowning and speculative/spectacular imaginaries of fashion
Haute couture is regarded as the epitome of high fashion – an exquisite combination of a designer’s vision, techniques of rarefied artisanal construction and an unaffordable luxury for most. The figure of the clown, in contrast, is regarded by some scholars and audiences as belonging to the realm of the ‘clod-like’, as a humorous figure that appeals to humanity’s desire for low if not base comedy. Yet haute couture and the practice of clowning ha…
Women Scientists in American Television Comedy: Beakers, Big Bangs and Broken Hearts
Gender and terror tangled in the weeds: Poison Ivy between eco-feminism and eco-terrorism
Eco-Terrorist. Femme fatale. Botanist. Environmentalist. Scientist. Villain. DC’s Poison Ivy has been challenging ideas about human interactions with the planet since 1966. Exploring alternative portrayals of femininity, power and plant liberation, Ivy sits at a unique intersection between female and plant empowerment – which is complicated by her criminal activities. By examining recently published comic book stories of Poison Ivy in conjunction…
Joker stages: Popular performance and theatrical sensibilities in Joker comics and film adaptations
Clown, performer, entertainer. The Joker’s stage identities and innate theatricality have many facets. This article explores the violent clown’s theatrical sensibilities across a range of Joker comics and films with the aim of opening up a conversation between the present and the past – between contemporary Joker ‘stage performances’ unfolding in comics and a powerful mix of historical contexts and cultural continuities that, we argue, continue t…
From Harleen Quinzel to Harley Quinn: Science, symmetry and transformation
Harley Quinn has become an important and popular character in the DC Universe, especially for representations of women scientists in comics and the associated cinematic and TV adaptations. Understandably, much of the analysis of this character has tended to focus on her relationship with the Joker and the gender-based dimensions of this dynamic. However, to distill her identity to these dimensions would be unnecessarily, even unfairly, reductioni…
Vaude-villain and violent funster: Harley Quinn and humour
Harley Quinn is not only DC’s ever-yearning romantic Joker victim – a libidinous, self-centred coarse bumpkin in suspenders, who regularly gets thrashed without mercy – but also an eccentric clown and violent vaude-villain. We argue that the diversity of Harley Quinn’s personality as portrayed by different writers and impersonated by cosplay fans is intrinsically connected to the complex and multi-dimensional humour that is associated with the ch…
Challenging the stereotype through humor? Comic female scientists in animated TV series for young audiences
Stereotypical representations about what scientists do, look like, and how they behave are cognized in early childhood and refined throughout life, through direct or indirect contact with the STEM communication climate, whether it be direct interactions with scientists, science education, communique, or entertainment. Popular media (TV) plays an important role in influencing our ideas of science by constructing images of social science reality. W…
Injecting fun? Humour, conspiracy theory and (anti)vaccination discourse in popular media
Conspiracy theories have accompanied vaccination since its mass introduction, circulating, among other forms, in humour – such as cartoons, and now, memes. Importantly, humour has targeted both vaccination and anti-vaccination stances. In this study, we discuss the peculiarities of humorous content within the vaccination debate and uncover the most popular thematic categories, forms and logical mechanisms of humour. We show that humorous and seri…
He who gets slapped: How can clowning in film interrogate technoscientific culture and help enact the ideals of responsible innovation
Enacting reflexivity in techno-scientific research systems is an ongoing challenge for responsible innovation (RI) researchers and practitioners. Drawing on one of the most successful films of Hollywood's silent years –Victor Seastrom's He Who Gets Slapped (1924) – this paper argues that the study of popular culture can make a vital contribution to enacting reflexivity by illuminating the messy emotions involved in changing established techno-sci…
Human or machine?” performing androids, “Elektro‐Homos,” and the “Phroso” and “Moto Phoso” manias on the popular stage around 1900
“Human or Puppet?” A once popular, now forgotten performance routine explored this question on the popular stage. Concentrating on rare historical materials, this paper uncovers how “Human or Puppet?” performances looked like and how they built on and added to the early twentieth‐century cultural discourse, and trope, of the human machine. Extending the notion of “popular modernity” this paper provides a better sense of the stories, cultural work…
From Caligari to Joker: The clown prince of crime’s psychopathic science
From the very beginning of his adventures in the DC universe, the Joker has been associated with science, particularly (bio)chemistry and microbiology. Exploring some recently published narrative examples of Joker science together with the insight provided by virology and chemistry, this paper examines the scientific and cultural ideas of science conveyed by the violent clown and his scientific extravaganzas. Psychopathic, mannerist Joker science…
Manegenkünste: Zirkus Als ästhetisches Modell
Flights of Fancy. Mannerist Aesthetics in Paul Auster's Mr Vertigo and Contemporary Circus Contexts
The Circus as an Aesthetic Model - Research on Circus Arts and Circus Studies in Germany. Introduction
Authors
Dank
Manegenkünste - Zirkus als ästhetisches Modell. Einleitung
Batman and the World of Tomorrow: Yesterday’s Technological Future in the Animated Film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Examining facets of modernist visions of our technological future and of theatricalized city and stage spaces in the 1993 animated film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, this article explores the cultural meaning of technology in graphic fiction. The confrontation scene between Batman and Joker in the grounds of Gotham’s World’s Fair, the author argues, echoes the 1939 New York World’s Fair with its modernist urban optimism and pop cultural fascinati…
The Pathology of Joker’s Dance: The Origins of Arthur Fleck’s Body Aesthetics in Todd Phillips’s 2019 Joker Film
Todd Phillips’s 2019 movie Joker reconfigures and actualizes body aesthetics and performance traditions—eccentric movements and so-called epileptic dancing—celebrated around 1900 on the popular stage and in early film. This body language, consisting of bizarre contortions, dislocations, jerking, and gesticulating, is linked to medical discourses about the nervous system, and can be traced in popular theater throughout the twentieth century. This …
Greatest Klown on Earth’ – and the Killer Klowns from Outer Space: Stephen Chiodo in conversation with Anna-Sophie Jürgens
Anna-Sophie Jurgens: Dear Stephen, I am absolutely honoured and delighted to welcome you to our special themed journal issue of Comedy Studies. Thank you very much for agreeing to act as a special
Violence in the clownlight: Ira Seidenstein on the inner world of the clown, slapstick and dynamite – a conversation with Anna-Sophie Jürgens
Humorectomy: Engineering comic clown violence – Will Elliott in conversation with Anna-Sophie Jürgens
Side-splitting amusement: On comic scientists – the sciency type of violent clowns
Focusing on comic scientists in the popular cultural matrix around 1900 and the early 20th century, the heyday of circus arts, this paper explores an ongoing aesthetic tradition of comic pathological body aesthetics emerging from comic mad scientists and violent Frankensteinian clowns in literature and film. It clarifies that in circus contexts the Frankenstein-theme is terribly (morbidly) funny, and explores the reasons that make it so. Investig…
Schlock horror and pillow punches: Introduction to the dialectics of the violent clown – and this special themed journal issue
As an introduction to this special themed journal issue on violent clowns, this paper provides an overview of the 14 contributions that examine the comic appeal of violence in culture. It also ties together some of the threads that repeatedly characterise the polarising protagonist of this special issue, the violent clown, and his iconic dialectical patterns
A funny taste: Clowns and Cannibals
The risk of being consumed by a clown is as high as the risk of being eaten by a cannibal. However small it might be, both play a major role in our cultural imagination. They are particularly popular in personal union: as cannibal clown. Cannibal clowns distinguish themselves by their bestial laughter that is armed with pointed teeth, and engage in eccentric cascades of violence. Exploring the cultural history of these creatures since the 19th ce…
Human or machine?” performing androids, “Elektro‐Homos,” and the “Phroso” and “Moto Phoso” manias on the popular stage around 1900
“Human or Puppet?” A once popular, now forgotten performance routine explored this question on the popular stage. Concentrating on rare historical materials, this paper uncovers how “Human or Puppet?” performances looked like and how they built on and added to the early twentieth‐century cultural discourse, and trope, of the human machine. Extending the notion of “popular modernity” this paper provides a better sense of the stories, cultural work…
A funny taste: Clowns and Cannibals
The risk of being consumed by a clown is as high as the risk of being eaten by a cannibal. However small it might be, both play a major role in our cultural imagination. They are particularly popular in personal union: as cannibal clown. Cannibal clowns distinguish themselves by their bestial laughter that is armed with pointed teeth, and engage in eccentric cascades of violence. Exploring the cultural history of these creatures since the 19th ce…
Comic in Suspenders: Jim Sharman’s Circus Worlds in The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show
This article reframes an icon of twentieth-century cross-cultural folklore. It argues that the protagonist in The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show is both a hybrid of two types of comic entertainers and an example of the way the pantomime tradition travelled between England and Australia. By clarifying what original Rocky director, the Australian Jim Sharman, likes to call his “colourful past”, and by exploring his many reflections on popular culture,…
A funny taste: Clowns and Cannibals
The risk of being consumed by a clown is as high as the risk of being eaten by a cannibal. However small it might be, both play a major role in our cultural imagination. They are particularly popular in personal union: as cannibal clown. Cannibal clowns distinguish themselves by their bestial laughter that is armed with pointed teeth, and engage in eccentric cascades of violence. Exploring the cultural history of these creatures since the 19th ce…
Comic in Suspenders: Jim Sharman’s Circus Worlds in The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show
This article reframes an icon of twentieth-century cross-cultural folklore. It argues that the protagonist in The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show is both a hybrid of two types of comic entertainers and an example of the way the pantomime tradition travelled between England and Australia. By clarifying what original Rocky director, the Australian Jim Sharman, likes to call his “colourful past”, and by exploring his many reflections on popular culture,…
Greatest Klown on Earth’ – and the Killer Klowns from Outer Space: Stephen Chiodo in conversation with Anna-Sophie Jürgens
Anna-Sophie Jurgens: Dear Stephen, I am absolutely honoured and delighted to welcome you to our special themed journal issue of Comedy Studies. Thank you very much for agreeing to act as a special
Violence in the clownlight: Ira Seidenstein on the inner world of the clown, slapstick and dynamite – a conversation with Anna-Sophie Jürgens
Humorectomy: Engineering comic clown violence – Will Elliott in conversation with Anna-Sophie Jürgens
Side-splitting amusement: On comic scientists – the sciency type of violent clowns
Focusing on comic scientists in the popular cultural matrix around 1900 and the early 20th century, the heyday of circus arts, this paper explores an ongoing aesthetic tradition of comic pathological body aesthetics emerging from comic mad scientists and violent Frankensteinian clowns in literature and film. It clarifies that in circus contexts the Frankenstein-theme is terribly (morbidly) funny, and explores the reasons that make it so. Investig…
Schlock horror and pillow punches: Introduction to the dialectics of the violent clown – and this special themed journal issue
As an introduction to this special themed journal issue on violent clowns, this paper provides an overview of the 14 contributions that examine the comic appeal of violence in culture. It also ties together some of the threads that repeatedly characterise the polarising protagonist of this special issue, the violent clown, and his iconic dialectical patterns
Flights of Fancy. Mannerist Aesthetics in Paul Auster's Mr Vertigo and Contemporary Circus Contexts
The Circus as an Aesthetic Model - Research on Circus Arts and Circus Studies in Germany. Introduction
Authors
Dank
Manegenkünste - Zirkus als ästhetisches Modell. Einleitung
Batman and the World of Tomorrow: Yesterday’s Technological Future in the Animated Film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Examining facets of modernist visions of our technological future and of theatricalized city and stage spaces in the 1993 animated film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, this article explores the cultural meaning of technology in graphic fiction. The confrontation scene between Batman and Joker in the grounds of Gotham’s World’s Fair, the author argues, echoes the 1939 New York World’s Fair with its modernist urban optimism and pop cultural fascinati…
The Pathology of Joker’s Dance: The Origins of Arthur Fleck’s Body Aesthetics in Todd Phillips’s 2019 Joker Film
Todd Phillips’s 2019 movie Joker reconfigures and actualizes body aesthetics and performance traditions—eccentric movements and so-called epileptic dancing—celebrated around 1900 on the popular stage and in early film. This body language, consisting of bizarre contortions, dislocations, jerking, and gesticulating, is linked to medical discourses about the nervous system, and can be traced in popular theater throughout the twentieth century. This …
Manegenkünste: Zirkus Als ästhetisches Modell
From Caligari to Joker: The clown prince of crime’s psychopathic science
From the very beginning of his adventures in the DC universe, the Joker has been associated with science, particularly (bio)chemistry and microbiology. Exploring some recently published narrative examples of Joker science together with the insight provided by virology and chemistry, this paper examines the scientific and cultural ideas of science conveyed by the violent clown and his scientific extravaganzas. Psychopathic, mannerist Joker science…
Challenging the stereotype through humor? Comic female scientists in animated TV series for young audiences
Stereotypical representations about what scientists do, look like, and how they behave are cognized in early childhood and refined throughout life, through direct or indirect contact with the STEM communication climate, whether it be direct interactions with scientists, science education, communique, or entertainment. Popular media (TV) plays an important role in influencing our ideas of science by constructing images of social science reality. W…
Injecting fun? Humour, conspiracy theory and (anti)vaccination discourse in popular media
Conspiracy theories have accompanied vaccination since its mass introduction, circulating, among other forms, in humour – such as cartoons, and now, memes. Importantly, humour has targeted both vaccination and anti-vaccination stances. In this study, we discuss the peculiarities of humorous content within the vaccination debate and uncover the most popular thematic categories, forms and logical mechanisms of humour. We show that humorous and seri…
He who gets slapped: How can clowning in film interrogate technoscientific culture and help enact the ideals of responsible innovation
Enacting reflexivity in techno-scientific research systems is an ongoing challenge for responsible innovation (RI) researchers and practitioners. Drawing on one of the most successful films of Hollywood's silent years –Victor Seastrom's He Who Gets Slapped (1924) – this paper argues that the study of popular culture can make a vital contribution to enacting reflexivity by illuminating the messy emotions involved in changing established techno-sci…
Human or machine?” performing androids, “Elektro‐Homos,” and the “Phroso” and “Moto Phoso” manias on the popular stage around 1900
“Human or Puppet?” A once popular, now forgotten performance routine explored this question on the popular stage. Concentrating on rare historical materials, this paper uncovers how “Human or Puppet?” performances looked like and how they built on and added to the early twentieth‐century cultural discourse, and trope, of the human machine. Extending the notion of “popular modernity” this paper provides a better sense of the stories, cultural work…
From Harleen Quinzel to Harley Quinn: Science, symmetry and transformation
Harley Quinn has become an important and popular character in the DC Universe, especially for representations of women scientists in comics and the associated cinematic and TV adaptations. Understandably, much of the analysis of this character has tended to focus on her relationship with the Joker and the gender-based dimensions of this dynamic. However, to distill her identity to these dimensions would be unnecessarily, even unfairly, reductioni…
Vaude-villain and violent funster: Harley Quinn and humour
Harley Quinn is not only DC’s ever-yearning romantic Joker victim – a libidinous, self-centred coarse bumpkin in suspenders, who regularly gets thrashed without mercy – but also an eccentric clown and violent vaude-villain. We argue that the diversity of Harley Quinn’s personality as portrayed by different writers and impersonated by cosplay fans is intrinsically connected to the complex and multi-dimensional humour that is associated with the ch…
Women Scientists in American Television Comedy: Beakers, Big Bangs and Broken Hearts
Gender and terror tangled in the weeds: Poison Ivy between eco-feminism and eco-terrorism
Eco-Terrorist. Femme fatale. Botanist. Environmentalist. Scientist. Villain. DC’s Poison Ivy has been challenging ideas about human interactions with the planet since 1966. Exploring alternative portrayals of femininity, power and plant liberation, Ivy sits at a unique intersection between female and plant empowerment – which is complicated by her criminal activities. By examining recently published comic book stories of Poison Ivy in conjunction…
Joker stages: Popular performance and theatrical sensibilities in Joker comics and film adaptations
Clown, performer, entertainer. The Joker’s stage identities and innate theatricality have many facets. This article explores the violent clown’s theatrical sensibilities across a range of Joker comics and films with the aim of opening up a conversation between the present and the past – between contemporary Joker ‘stage performances’ unfolding in comics and a powerful mix of historical contexts and cultural continuities that, we argue, continue t…
Art (18 works) · Literature (12 works) · Aesthetics (11 works) · Comics (9 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Visual arts (8 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Cinema and Media Studies (4 works)