Clockwork Rhetoric: The Language and Style of Steampunk

244 Pages·2014·5.71 MB·

by  Barry Brummett

CloCkwork
rhetoriC
XX

CloCk work
rhetoriC
The Language and Style of Steampunk
edited by Barry Brummett
university press of mississippi
JACkson
XX
www.upress.state.ms.us
Designed by Peter D. Halverson
The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of
American University Presses.

Copyright © 2014 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing 2014
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clockwork rhetoric : the language and style of steampunk / edited by
Barry Brummett.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-62846-091-9 (cloth) — ISBN 978-1-62846-092-6 (ebook)
1. Steampunk fiction—History and criticism. 2. Narration (Rhetoric)
3. Style, Literary. 4. Steampunk culture. I. Brummett, Barry, 1951–
editor of compilation.
PN3448.S73C58 2014
700'.411—dc23 2014001979

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Editor’s Introduction
The Rhetoric of Steampunk ix
Barry Brummett
Introduction
A Rhetoric of Steam xiv
David Beard
A rhetoriC of steAmpunk ideology
“There Is Hope for the Future”
The (Dis)Enchantment of the Technician-Hero in Steampunk 3
Mirko M. Hall and Joshua Gunn
Victorians, Machines, and Exotic Others
Steampunk and the Aesthetic of Empire 19
Kristin Stimpson
Liberation and a Corset
Examining False Feminism in Steampunk 38
Mary Anne Taylor
A rhetoriC of steAmpunk semiotiCs
Antimodernism as the Rhetoric of Steampunk Anime
Fullmetal Alchemist, Technological Anxieties, and Controlling the
Machine 61
Elizabeth Birmingham
vi Contents
Jumping Scale in Steampunk
One Gear Makes You Larger, One Duct Makes You Small 80
Barry Brummett
Steampunk and Sherlock Holmes
Performing Post-Marxism 94
Jaime Wright
A rhetoriC of steAmpunk nArrAtive
Kenneth Burke Meets a Time Lord
Steampunk’s Grammatical Disruption 115
John R. Thompson
Clockwork Counterfactuals
Allohistory and the Steampunk Rhetoric of Inquiry 135
John M. McKenzie
Steampunk’s Identity Horizon and Contested Memory 159
Andrew Mara
Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes
Steampunk Superhero? 177
Lisa Horton
Contributors 203
Index 206
ACknowledgments
Any press takes a chance in bringing out a new book, especially when the
book is the first of its kind. The editor and contributors wish to thank the
University Press of Mississippi for their wise guidance and efficient develop-
ment of this manuscript.
vii