Like Clockwork : Steampunk Pasts, Presents, and Futures

275 Pages·2016·4.376 MB·English

by  Rachel A. Bowser , Brian Croxall , (eds.)

LIKE CLOCKWORK

LIKE CLOCKWORK
Steampunk

Pasts, Presents, and Futures
Rachel A. Bowser and Brian Croxall
EDITORS
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis ⁄ London
Copyright 2016 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a re-
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of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
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Minneapolis, MN 55401– 2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bowser, Rachel A. | Croxall, Brian.
Title: Like clockwork : steampunk pasts, presents, and futures / Rachel A. Bowser and
Brian Croxall [editors].
Description: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016003054 (print) | ISBN 978-1-5179-0062-5 (hc) |
ISBN 978-1-5179-0063-2 (pb)
Subjects: LCSH: Steampunk fiction—History and criticism.
Classification: LCC PN3448.S73 L55 2016 (print) | DDC 809.3/876—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016003054
WE DEDICATE THIS BOOK to our kids—
Chaz, Finn, Gwen, and Sadie— whom we hope
will always know the joy of playing dress- up,
the power of knowing history, and the value
of collaborating with a good friend.
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ................................. ix
Introduction.
It’s about Time: Reading Steampunk’s Rise and Roots .. xi
RACHEL A. BOWSER AND BRIAN CROXALL
I. Steampunk Spaces and Things
1. Steampunk and the Victorian City: Time Machines,
Bryan Talbot, and the Center of the Multiverse ........ 3
DAVID PIKE
2. How to Theorize with a Hammer; or, Making and Baking
Things in Steampunk and the Digital Humanities ..... 33
ROGER WHITSON
3. The Steampunk City in Crisis ..................... 51
CATHERINE SIEMANN
II. Steampunk Bodies and Identities
4. From Steam Arms to Brass Goggles:
Steampunk, Prostheses, and Disability .............. 73
KATHRYN CROWTHER
5. The Aesthete, the Dandy, and the Steampunk;
or, Things as They Are Now ....................... 97
STEFANIA FORLINI
6. Punking the Other: On the Performance of
Racial and National Identities in Steampunk ........ 127
DIANA M. PHO
III. Steampunk Reading and Revising
7. Seminal Steampunk: Proper and True .............. 153
MIKE PERSCHON
8. The Alchemy of Aether: Steampunk as Reading Practice
in Karina Cooper’s Tarnished and Gilded ............ 179
LISA HAGER
9. Out of Control: Disrupting Technological Mastery
in Michael Moorcock’s The Warlord of the Air and
K. W. Jeter’s Infernal Devices ..................... 199
JOSEPH WEAKLAND AND SHAUN DUKE
Contributors .................................... 219
Index .......................................... 223
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Brian and Rachel are thankful for:
Our authors, for their excellent work and their attention to never-
ending e- mails, edits, and steampunk puns;
Rise- n- Dine restaurant in Emory Village, for the sausage tacos
that fueled us toward these initial ideas, almost ten years ago;
Marie- Luise Kohlke, for her rigorous work with us on the steam-
punk special issue of Neo- Victorian Studies, which inspired the begin-
nings of this volume;
Doug Armato, for his faith in the project, and Erin Warholm-
Wohlenhaus, for her invaluable help in preparing the manuscript;
Sarah Aloe Peterson, for her equal amounts of patience and eye-
rolling during these many years of hearing about steampunk;
Our partners, Amber Croxall and Brian Kyle, for keeping straight
faces almost always, for all this time.
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