Scientists seek to explore how nature works and ask how humanity can best comprehend different aspects of the world. In fictional and cultural contexts, scientists appear as rebels against the status quo and the ordinary. In the collections of the National Library of Australia, literary scholar Anna-Sophie Jürgens has discovered that some scientists even behave like artists: they are creative, skilled craftsmen or bewildering performers. By revealing how fictional and fictitious scientists not merely domesticate the unknown, but also invent and stage it, she will provide new insights into the connections between scientific knowledge and the creative imagination in Australia.

National Library Fellow Dr Anna-Sophie Jürgens is currently undertaking postdoctoral research at the Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, funded by the Humboldt Foundation. Her research on the intersections between literature, cultural studies, arts and science, and on circus in fiction in particular, has been published internationally in books and papers.

Dr Anna-Sophie Jürgens is a National Library of Australia Fellow.