Miller Cynthia J. - Steaming into a Victorian future: a Steampunk anthology

Foreword

Ken Dvorak

As this anthology demonstrates, steampunk presents the popular culture scholar with a multitude of venues from which to investigate this science fiction and fantasy subgenre. Ray Browne (19222009), the founder of the academic study of popular culture in America, wrote that popular culture is the everyday world around us: the mass media, entertainments, and diversions. It is our heroes, icons, rituals, everyday actions, psychology, and religionour total life picture. It is the way of living we inherit, practice and modify as we please, and how we do it. It is the dreams we dream while asleep. And what if these dreams are steampunk influenced? Steampunk turns upside down the world of science fiction and fantasy. Reimagining both the past and the future, often through a neo-Victorian lens, steampunk also allows us to debate serious social, economic, political, and cultural issues relevant to our present lives.

Since the 1980s steampunk has witnessed the emergence of a global community of followers whose interest has moved beyond its Victorian literary foundations, and the genre has split into a mash-up of creative influences. A new generation of tinkerers and entrepreneurs make and sell steampunk-themed products, including home dcor items; laptops retrofitted with gears, brass, and knobs; and fashion designs with such must haves as goggles, corsets, and skin art. Steampunk has crossed over into feature films, fandom groups, video games, and music (e.g., steampunk fair headliners Abney Park and Professor Elemental). One can even fantasize with steam-powered vibrators (beware, you need to wear welding gloves because the vibrator gets hot, according to one inventor!).

Steampunks admirers and critics alike have grappled with its exact meaning. Katherine Wilson observes what makes Steampunk tricky to peg down is its amorphous nature. She notes that steampunk, for the most part, has a decided Victorian influence but it may just as easily fit into other clothes, such as Edwardian or perhaps psychedelic, but with steampunk it is what you choose for the masquerade ball. Fan blog sites provide additional examples of steampunks accessibility to the general public. The Weird Tales blog has published Stephen H. Segals Five Thoughts on the Popularity of Steampunk, pointing out that for those who once were part of the Goth movement, some have drifted along with their parents to steampunk finding that Its not just cool because it is trendyits cool because it is inspirational.

Putting this levity aside for a moment, steampunk does provoke serious political and social debatemuch of it self-reflective. Is it merely a nostalgia-driven fad or an actual movement with an ideology and agenda? Rebecca Onion, whose path-breaking chapter is cited throughout this collection, observes that a social movement based around an aesthetic seems particularly vulnerable to imitation and misinterpretation. In sync with Brownes call to explore the multiple manifestations of popular culture, Onion acknowledges the heart of steampunk culture is best defined by the object-based work of its fans but cautions that misinterpretation of an aesthetic movement as simple aesthetics leaves the deeper relationship between human and object unexamined. One example of steampunk as more than mere aesthetic can be seen in its radical endeavors; bloggers James Schafer and Kate Franklin of Parliament & Wake, in their discussion Why Steampunk (Still) Matters, describe steampunk as a counterculture movement aligned with those objecting to global corporate greed and the increasing disparities between the haves and have notsthemes familiar to those found in the Occupy Wall Street protests (OWS). Radical steampunks envision a future far different from today, with political/economic/social power structures reversed, leaving its proponents asking Why not? and demanding greater accountability from the ruling political/corporate classes.

If we return to just the literary origins of steampunk, we see how it has moved beyond its sci-fi roots, fracturing into such subgenres as steampunk erotica and paranormal steampunk. Popular culture scholars are presented with an interesting challenge: how to define this movement without assigning it a homogenizing identity. Steampunk devotees are well aware of previous anthologiesAnn and Jeff VanderMeers essential Steampunk (2008) immediately comes to mindthat showcase the literature that has been inspired by Verne and Wells and seem to best epitomize the steampunk label. The chapters included in Steaming into a Victorian Future offer critical explorations of such fiction, as well as the other equally important manifestations of steampunk, from music to DIY websites. Hopefully this anthology will be a catalyst for further scholarly debate as steampunk becomes an even greater presence in popular culture.

Notes

1. Conversations with Scholars in American Popular Culture: Ray B. Browne, Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture 1900 to Present 1, no. 2 (2002), n.p., www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/fall_2002/browne.htm (1 April 2012).

2. Ani Niows, inventor, cited in Katherine Wilson, Steampunk, Meanjin Quarterly 69, no. 2 (2010): 26.

3. Wilson, Steampunk, 24.

4. Stephen H. Segal, Five Thoughts on the Popularity of Steampunk, in Weird Tales: The Original Magazine of the Unique, Fantastic & Bizarre (2008), http://weirdtales.net/wordpress/2008/09/17/five-thoughts-on-the-popularity-of-steampunk (1 April 2012).

5. Rebecca Onion, Reclaiming the Machine: An Introductory Look at Steampunk in Everyday Practice, Neo-Victorian Studies 1, no. 1 (2008): 155, www.neovictorianstudies.com (1 April 2012).