April 9, 2026 | 9–10:30 am CEST
Popular culture is one of the most powerful spaces where publics encounter science, form attitudes toward it and imagine what scientific, technological and environmental futures might look like. Film and comics, for example, reach global audiences and offer a narrative imagination lab where emerging technologies and environmental urgencies (and solutions) can be explored long before they enter everyday life. These visually enticing worlds help shape cultural meanings of science and the environment: what feels possible, what feels risky and what feels desirable.
The POPSICULE at the Australian National University works at exactly this intersection of science and imagination. It’s an award-winning interdisciplinary hub that studies how science and ideas of our environment circulate through popular culture and how cultural narratives, aesthetics and emotions shape public engagement with scientific and ecological ideas. Through a range of research and engagement projects and creative collaborations, the POPSICULE experiments with new interactive forms of science communication and investigates how stories – from blockbusters, street art to bioart – influence the way society understands scientific and technological innovation.
Come and join Mx Crys Clitheroe and Dr AnnaSophie Jürgens for a whirlwind tour through their latest adventures – from animated popup book visions to the ways synthetic biology and emerging biotechnologies are being reimagined in contemporary comics. We’ll dip into cinematic worlds and sequential art where genomes glitch, ecosystems push back, bodies get weird and the future refuses to behave. Find out how we explore science and environmental knowledge in popular culture, investigating our place in the natural world and our responsibilities toward non-human species through aesthetic experience, and how we create alternative scenarios that challenge the legacies of human exceptionalism, inspiring reflection and meaningful change. And who knows – by the end, you might even decide to become a Popsiculist, joining our crew of scienceculture explorers who treat pop culture as both a playground and a laboratory!
Bios:
Mx. Crys Clitheroe is a PhD researcher in Science Communication at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at The Australian National University (ANU), and part of the POPSICULE, ANU’s Science in Popular Culture and Entertainment Hub. Their research explores how scientific themes like biotechnology, bioengineering and their practitioners are portrayed in modern, alternate, and independent – or “biopunk” – comics, particularly those that espouse critical optimism or “hopepunk” messaging about our myriad imagined futures. Their other interests are fanon, cosplay and diverse representation of LGBTQIA+ scientists and characters in comics and pop culture. ORCID |Google Scholar |LinkedIn | Instagram
Dr AnnaSophie Jürgens is a Senior Lecturer at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at The Australian National University (ANU) and Founder of the Popsicule, ANU’s Science in Popular Culture Hub. Her research explores the cultural meanings of science, the history of (violent) clowns and mad scientists, science and humor, and the interface between science, the environment and (public) art. Anna-Sophie’s recent books include Women Scientists in American Television Comedy: Beakers, Big Bangs and Broken Hearts (2025) and Communicating Ice through Popular Art and Aesthetics (2024).
Registration:
