Random things make a post!

[oyceter]

1. Aiiiieeee! IBARW3 starts on Monday and I am so not prepared.


2. N.K. Jemison and Yoon Ha Lee A group of authors published on Helix put together Transcriptase, a site featuring fiction and poetry that appeared on Helix prior to the William Sanders idiocy. Go check it out!


3. In manga news, 20th Century Boys is finally being scheduled for release! Whoo! For those who don't know, it's a great manga by the mangaka of Monster, only this one covers childhood games, manga geekery, music geekery, giant robots, and the bravery of ordinary people. (my write ups)


4. On the boo side, vol. 3 and 4 of Bride of the Water God aren't coming out until next year. Argh! I knew I should have read ahead in Taiwan.


5. I keep forgetting that people reading me don't magically and telepathically extract what I'm reading from my brain. You may all find this nifty, particularly if you're into steampunk:
   

   I don’t know if I’d even consider the look ‘steampunk’, more of an abstract 19th century cargo cult. It’s partially based on the images I’ve seen of native cultures dominated by industrialized societies. Wearing the clothes of the imperialists, adopting their mannerisms, but retaining an identity in their hair and skin. There’s an odd subjugation yet an ownership of the style in these old photos. Take the trappings of your enemy and wear them in your own way, use them against them.

   
   The gadget and clothes geek in me absolutely adores steampunk, but I also have issues with it, especially since it's based in a time that wreaked havoc on POC communities, thanks to imperialism, and because the point of view in steampunk is frequently coming from aforementioned imperialist white cultures.
   
   While I love the imagery of the technology, it's difficult to forget that that very technology was a highly destructive one to both the environment and to POC. And if steampunk is centered on Victorian England, where does that leave everyone else? I want to be in steampunk too, but not if my friends and I are mysterious Oriental girls smoking opium or Indian widows waiting to be rescued by rich British travelers or savages in Africa awaiting civilization by missionaries.
   
   ETA: I don't mean to just bash steampunk and people who like it; one of the reasons it appeals to me is because there's this enormous potential in the genre to rewrite and reappropriate traditional Western narratives of imperialism and dominance, much like anachronaut is doing with his costuming. I'm just not convinced that that's what's actually happening most of the time. (OK, and I'm preemptively grumpy that when people think "1800s," they probably aren't thinking about the Opium Wars or the Berlin Conference or Native boarding schools.)

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

Oooh, thanks for the steamfashion link. Sad that a quick scan of the comments seems to indicate that his comments on colonialism have gone over the heads of everyone just saying, "Pretttttttty!" Why am I not surprised? :P

I want to be in steampunk too, but not if my friends and I are mysterious Oriental girls smoking opium or Indian widows waiting to be rescued by rich British travelers or savages in Africa awaiting civilization by missionaries.

YES. Augh.

[oyceter]

Siiiigh. Oh comments, why so dumb?

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Personal ObRecommendation to anyone looking for critique of steampunk: Paul Cornell's Wisdom miniseries for Marvel.

[oyceter]

Oooo, thanks!

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Those pictures are extremely cool.

I have a similar issue with steampunk, actually -- it's part of why I prefer a more generalized anachrotech, because I think focusing just on Victoriana is problematic in a couple of ways, and one of them is definitely issues of imperialism and race. (I remember a very cool technology-infused Heian outfit/costume someone put together; I wish I had saved the link.)

[oyceter]

(I remember a very cool technology-infused Heian outfit/costume someone put together; I wish I had saved the link.)

Oh, that sounds awesome!

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Psst -- According to Conquest, Native boarding schools only barely got started in the 1890s, so people should probably be thinking of more straightforwardly genocidal projects for the 1800s. Like massacres of Indian tribes. Civil War. Black people still slaves. Sundown towns and lynchings in second half of the century.

[oyceter]

*nods* Doh, I was going by the googled date 1878, but yeah.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I want to be in steampunk too, but not if my friends and I are mysterious Oriental girls smoking opium or Indian widows waiting to be rescued by rich British travelers or savages in Africa awaiting civilization by missionaries.

YES, ARGH.

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

I want to be in steampunk too, but not if my friends and I are mysterious Oriental girls smoking opium or Indian widows waiting to be rescued by rich British travelers or savages in Africa awaiting civilization by missionaries.

Pretty much. That guy's stuff is so beautiful, its really impressive. Less impressive is the 'oh he's so exotic' fixation that seems to have sprung up.

[oyceter]

*snort* Oh people, why so stupid?

[seajules]

The imperialism/colonialism aspect is something that's really been in my mind with the upsurge of steampunk mentions on my flist. It influenced some of my suggestions for telophase's steampunk generator, though I realized I don't know nearly enough of what was happening in the world in the appropriate time period to make more suggestions. One of the things that interests me about steampunk, though, is exactly that possibility of exploring the non-white (and non-male) perspective of industrialization, of empire-building and expansionism and war. So I have to admit to disappointment when so much of steampunk seems to be just another theme park in which white males write out their fantasies, with women and POC as bits of window dressing.

And oh, gosh, you've reminded me I redid my post about white ethnicity, and possibly I should get that back out to all you long-suffering betas.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Any terms or phrases that you or anyone else can think of to go into the generator to help influence it towards a more inclusive attitude, let me know!

I think the phrase "mysterious Orient" might be in there, some to think of it. If it's a bit on the skeevy side, I can take it out.

I was just thinking that China was so advanced in technology throughout most of its history compared to the West that a steampunk China, where the history of colonialism and imperialism went a bit differently, that kept that technological lead, would be totally awesome.*




* Especially, to quote bravecows as we were walking through Yokohama Chinatown admiring the buildings, with "my people's love of restraint and simplicity in decor."

[oyceter]

*nods* Yeah, I keep thinking there's this huge potential in steampunk for rewriting, and yet, it doesn't seem to be done as much. I want stories of resistance to imperialism and overthrowing the colonizers and people taking back their land and culture! I want alternate versions in which China won the Opium War and various African kingdoms/nations banded together to fight off the Europeans and more stories like the Haitian Revolution.

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

20th Century Boys! At the rate I'm going,, I may as well wait to get print copies anf ease the strain on my eyes.

You read my mind, for I am composing an ibarw post right this minute! Is 'In the collective unconcious: cultural impositions, internalised racism and the colonised mind' too pretentious as a title, or just pretentious enough?

[oyceter]

I am so excited about 20th CB! It means I can soon sic it on even more people!

I love your title!

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

1. Can I quote you on the Steampunk thing?

2. There's a game I have which is steampunk space- still Colonial, but with sun powered ships going to Venus and such. And I totally, totally, want to play the Chinese HK captain in space, caught between the bullshit British and Chinese space pirates.

I should totally show you this game.

[oyceter]

1. Of course!

2. Oooo, cool! Oh hey, do you have a list of the anti-imperialism RPGs that you've been mentioning? I remember a few (the Thai (?) one and the slavery one) but not all of them.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I've not infrequently (I think this probably counts as hedgehog-speak for 'seldom stop banging on about') the appalling gender dynamics in most steampunk, which involve a nostalgic vision of a Boys' Own Paper universe that was not true even in the C19th, achieved by carefully ignoring female pioneers, activists, explorers, etc etc etc even of their own class status milieu etc.

*Sets Annie Besant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Besant) on the lot of them*

It's all about the Dead White Boyz Own Adventurez!

[oyceter]

Siiiiigh, yes. It's like they feel the need to rewrite history so it's even more white male centric!

[nojojojo.livejournal.com]

Steampunk stuff: hear, hear.

Transcriptase: to clarify, there were about six or seven writers involved in getting it off the ground. I only did a little of the story posting/coding and copy writing.

[oyceter]

Corrected, thanks for the note!

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I love the fusion aspect of those costume photos. It sort of made me want to link you to photos of mingmerciless doing English Civil War re-enactment, but I can't seem to find any that show him specifically :-(

[oyceter]

Ohhhh, that would be awesome, but no worries.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

eeeeee 20CB eeeeee!

I can sympathize with the people too distracted by teh hawt to comment intelligently on the steampunk guy. One of the things I think of as steampunk is Girl Genius (http://girlgeniusonline.com/), which is definitely not Victorian -- but it's not at all non-European, either. I would love to see a Chinese-steampunk world like telophase mentioned, too, and an African one please.

[oyceter]

Yeah! I want lots of stories of non-European steampunk, especially because I bet there are some really awesome stories about people resisting colonization.

[vonslatt.livejournal.com]

Hi There!

You've leveled some astute and accurate criticism. But I think your post also contains the answer. Steampunk shouldn't be purely neo-Victorian (how boring!), it should the very sort of cargo-cult mish-mash that anachronaut talks about.

I'd suggest looking to sources like Steampunk Magazine rather then steamfashion for the punkier side of things. SPM often explores the lives of the disenfranchised, urchins, and rebels.

My bag is technology, so there's no escaping that for me. But part of Steampunk for me is learning about the origins of technology. Knowing the history of tech can definitely help you make smarter decision in dealing with it today.

[oyceter]

How prominently are people of color featured in Steampunk Magazine? (I have no idea; have never seen it.)

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I got pointed to your thoughts on Steampunk, and I'm glad I was.

One really interesting source of 'oriental' steampunk fashion ideas to be would be the early Meiji Restoration period in Japan, the Western colonial fashion in full force collision steamrollering over the artificial formal tradion of the Tokugawa era. Top hatted samurai, and so forth. Then try and imagine it pushing back a little the other way, so the tide of fashion adoption didn't go all one way. The Bruce Sterling story Flowers of Edo is set in this era.

[oyceter]

Yes, Meiji was definitely one of the things I was thinking of! And things like slightly modernized household interiors in turn-of-the-century Shanghai with British writing desks and oil lamps and clocks amidst the other furnishings, and it would be cool to see people playing with that.

[dr-checkmate.livejournal.com]

random-whatsit-punk rarely is. Steampunk is no exception. I have similar issues with the pulp genre - at least the pulp of the 20s and 30s.

However, I think genres like steampunk and pulp can retain their cool, even enhance it, and address historical realities.

But, what the heck do I know?

[oyceter]

I do think the genres can address historical inequalities and etc., I'm just not sure how often they actually do.

[calligrafiti.livejournal.com]

Hiya. I'm here via a link in thebratqueen's journal.I recently finished a novel called The Alchemy of Stone that looks at feminist issues and some racism issues via a very steampunk approach. The main character is a thinking robot constructed with female signifiers and designed to think of herself as female, and those around her react to her as female as well as mechanical. One of the themes of the book involves the scrapegoating of non-white immigrants and their struggle to be perceived as people within the white community. It's not necessarily centered on England, but it has a definite steampunk aesthetic.

[oyceter]

Oh cool, thanks for the rec!

[baralier.livejournal.com]

And if steampunk is centered on Victorian England, where does that leave everyone else?

But is it centred on Victorian England? Yes there's lots of it that is but there's an vast amount that deals with America. I know there's *some* stuff being done with Chinese and Japanese focal points but I don't speak eaither language and only see the trickle that seeps out into English translation.

It's true the 19th century had some abysmal inequalities but Colonialism wasn't something specifically British. Africa was divided up among many of the European nations and the US was busy "assisting" many South American countries with things like canal building.

As far as I can tell steampunk is to the 19th century what the SCA is to the historical mediaeval age or Renfaires are to the 17th & 18th centuries: lots of wishful dreaming and all the nasty bits conveniently removed.