Today we welcome Mike Perschon, also known as the Steampunk Scholar.
Mike Perschon is a hypercreative scholar, musician, writer, and artist, husband to Jenica, father to Gunnar and Dacy, doctoral student at the University of Alberta, and English faculty at Grant MacEwan University. He runs the blog The Steampunk Scholar.
Advocating for Aesthetic
By Mike Perschon
At my most pedantic, I refuse to think of steampunk as a genre. When I’m sitting with folks having drinks at a con, I let the term slide, since it’s abused so much in North American parlance. Whenever someone refers to genre and fashion in the same sentence, I cringe. However, beyond all my academic proclivities, I champion the understanding of steampunk of an aesthetic, not a genre, for reasons related to playing nice in the online sandbox.
To understand steampunk as a genre is to invite the tyranny of subjectivity. Look at online forum discussions on steampunk literature to see what I mean: someone joins the discussion to say they’re reading Gail Carriger’s Soulless, only to be told that isn’t real steampunk, but paranormal romance in the Victorian era. Or someone bemoans Jay Lake’s use of “magic” in the last half of Mainspring. Often, the definition of steampunk literature is tied directly to someone’s personal likes and dislikes. Those who have mistakenly assumed steampunk is science fiction are nonplussed by secondary worlds and fantasy elements; those who simply want romanticism and high adventure eschew the serious-minded, perhaps heavy handed rigors of solid alternate history; one person says Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes was certainly steampunk: another says absolutely not. Digging further, we find a number of arbitrary standards have been assigned to the moniker of steampunk, further clouding the difficulty of defining an already troublesome compound word.
Some make appeals to etymology, trying to explain the term via steam and punk, respectively. “Steam” implies the industrial revolution and the nineteenth century. “Punk” means oppositional politics, or avant-garde styles. Articles abound advocating for more steam, or more punk. Some say if you don’t have steam, you don’t have steampunk, eliminating over half the literature on my shelf in one fell swoop, including a number of seminal works such as Tim Powers’ Anubis Gates. I’ve offhandedly said that there are very few steampunk works that use steam power: usually, we see aether, phlogiston, cavorite, or some other fictional substance that will let the writer/artist/creator really take their flight of fancy where they wish. Few steampunk writers have chosen to be constrained by the limitations of steam technology. More often, we see the argument that if there’s no punk, if it isn’t opposing Empire, it can’t be steampunk. Out the window goes K.W. Jeter’s Morlock Night, along with James Blaylock’s The Adventures of Langdon St. Ives, along with any number of recent steampunk works. The argument goes that any book not engaged in postcolonial criticism of the British Empire isn’t true steampunk. I played around with etymological approaches early in my research, and abandoned them in the first few months. The term is a joke that gained cultural commodity. It’s here to stay, but it’s ultimately pretty meaningless. More power to all of you who want more steam (historical accuracy) or punk (socio-political critique), but it doesn’t need to be there for the work to be steampunk.
After reading fifty steampunk novels, seminal and contemporary alike, attending a number of steampunk conventions both at home in Canada and south of the border in the States, watching steampunk films, reading steampunk comics, and perusing countless steampunk artworks online, I concluded there are three elements present in works labeled steampunk. The first is technofantasy, which simply put, is technology that appears scientific, but is never explained using the physical sciences. Even when steam or electricity is the motive power of steampunk technology, there is rarely a Vernian attention to how this would actually work. There are only a handful of books labeled steampunk that take the time to think through how their technology would work. Most often, it just does. When there is an explanation, there is a change in the way the physical universe operates. Mark Hodder does a fantastic job of explaining this in a self-aware fashion in The Case of the Clockwork Man: “Prognostication, cheiromancy, spiritualism—these things are spoken of in the other history, but they do not work there…” to which Burton adds, “there is one thing we can be certain of: changing time cannot possible alter natural laws” (57). Nevertheless, steampunk regularly violates natural laws, but under the guise of technology, and is therefore mistaken as a form of pure science fiction, when it might be better to understand steampunk as science fantasy.
The second element is neo-Victorianism, which I use to indicate steampunk’s evocation, but not accurate re-creation of the nineteenth century. Only the most exclusive aficionado of steampunk would demand steampunk occur in nineteenth century Victorian London. Instead, steampunk is the suggestion of this period, but not necessarily place or even time. Steampunk can occur in any time, and any locale (in this world or a secondary one, such as in Stephen Hunt’s The Court of the Air and its sequels), but it repeatedly suggests the nineteenth century and early twentieth century to us in one way or another. Another way of saying this would be Industrial Era, but I think that places too much focus on technology, whereas neo-Victorian can be inclusive of the fashion, customs, architecture, and technology of this period.
The third element is retrofuturism, which is to imagine how the past saw the future. This is closely aligned to neo-Victorianism, but takes on its own unique form, sometimes independent of the neo-Victorianism. While retrofuturism is often mistakenly understood as actual prognostication from the nineteenth century, as in the works of Jules Verne, a study of what nineteenth century people hoped for in their own speculative fiction produces the conclusion it was anything but what we’re seeing in steampunk. Speculative writers of the nineteenth century looked ahead to the end of steam, the rise of electricity, and perhaps more salient to the steampunk aesthetic, the loss of the corset in women’s fashion. Retrofuturism can be understood as how we imagine what the past hoped for in their future. It’s what we often refer to as the anachronism in steampunk, though this is often a misnomer in steampunk literature: after all, what is anachronistic about a secondary world’s inclusion of these advanced technologies in a quasi-Victorian society? That isn’t our world, so there’s nothing inherently anachronistic about such technology, save by the comparison to our world. Even most steampunk that takes place in “our” world lacks anachronism: the use of steampunk elements in Jay Lake’s Mainspring Earth isn’t anachronism: it belongs there. That’s why Mark Hodder’s novels are so brilliant – the characters understand their world is wrong. Things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be. That’s anachronism. But the airship Leviathan in Scott Westerfeld’s young adult series isn’t so much anachronism as part of the alternate world he’s created. Recently, I’ve been far more interested in how steampunk plays with retrofuturism in the socio-political sense, as in the novels of Cherie Priest and Gail Carriger, where we see the “New Woman” mentioned in Bram Stoker’s Dracula fully realized in the characters of Maria Isabella Boyd and Alexia Tarabotti. Again, I’m looking to balance the conflation of steampunk with technology. Obviously, it needs to be there, but it doesn’t need to be the focus of the narrative.
This last year has really shown the advantage of taking such an approach. I don’t have to label a book entirely steampunk or not. Rather, I can discuss how much of each aspect it uses, and what it does with those aspects. I don’t have to get into a fight about whether Firefly is steampunk. I just ask how much of the aesthetic it utilizes, and in what way it does so. If all three are present, it’s clearly the steampunk aesthetic. If we’re missing one entirely, we may not be dealing with steampunk per se: perhaps it really is just neo-Victorian fantasy, as in the case of Susannah Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Or maybe it’s just retrofuturist technofantasy, as in Alex Proyas’ Dark City (pulp era, not neo-Victorian). Is Harry Potter steampunk? No, but aspects of the steampunk aesthetic were employed by the design folks involved in the post-Chris Columbus films.
Further, the aesthetic approach can be applied to literature, film, music, fashion, and art. It enables a way of discussing steampunk without being elitist-exclusive or needlessly inclusive. This bothers some: they don’t want their steampunk to be an empty aesthetic. From my perspective, the steampunk glass isn’t half-full or half-empty: it’s empty, awaiting the artist to fill it with something. Want your steampunk to have more punk? Fill the aesthetic with your activism. Want your steampunk to have more steam? Make your aesthetic accurate. Just looking for a good time? Then add some absinthe to your aesthetic, and let loose the airships of war, or exploration, and head for the horizon. Genres are for publishers. Aesthetics are for artists.
–Mike Perschon
Excellent post!
Do you really think it’s common to insist on opposition to Empire as an element in steampunk? I find there’s an equal but opposite tendency, at least by both those academics and science fiction writers outside of steampunk who comment on it, to assume that it *glorifies* Empire, or at least is uncritical. (I was somewhat startled at a neoVictorian panel at ACLA the spring before last to discover how commonly held this assumption was.) I know we have Beyond Victoriana and Silver Goggles and many others countering this assumption and celebrating the critique of Empire, but I hadn’t thought that things had swung so far that it was the default position. Interesting . . .
I enjoyed reading this.
“Genres are for publishers. Aesthetics are for artists.”
A nifty line and a good stopper.
Fantastic Article. Ascetic vs genre, and the specific points on down the line. Random Aside: When I was younger I referred to retro-futurism as “un-high-tech.”
Catherine: No, I don’t make that assumption – others do. I’m simply listing it here as a misconception of what is inherently steampunk. I should have listed some books that don’t present opposition to Empire as an element: Carriger’s Soulless series isn’t Alexia vs. the Queen (at least, not yet!), Jonathan Green’s Pax Britannia series is pro-British Empire. Many are simply ambivalent – there is an Empire somewhere, but it doesn’t have anything to do with my adventures (I’m thinking Kenneth Oppel’s Airborn series here). So no, I don’t see it as inherent. I think the problem here again is subjectivity: people who prefer these sorts of stories want to say this is “essential” or “true” steampunk, but it isn’t. It’s just political steampunk. And to add to that, whatever the punk advocates are saying, there’s nothing overtly political about steampunk as an aesthetic (there is always something connotatively political about any art object, but that’s for the political theorists to debate, not me).
@Mike, what I asked was actually “do you think it’s common to insist on opposition to Empire” as an element in steampunk, as I’ve found the assumption quite often goes the other way. From your post and from your blog, I know that’s not your point of view, so I’m sorry for any confusion.
I’m personally all for political steampunk but also for pure joyful entertainment steampunk.
Depoliticization is a political position, though. That’s what seems to draw the ire of so many critics of steampunk: the idea that since steampunk is Only! For! Fun! it must mean steampunk as a whole doesn’t engage with problems of Empire. Which is why I like talking about steampunk as aesthetic as well: although aestheticization is linked to depoliticization, and part of why steampunk seems to be coming under fire is due to the consumerist deterritorialization of stuff that makes the Srs Bsnz Thinkers so Concerned, steampunk as an aesthetic opens us up to the CHOICE of whether or not to engage with Empire, and HOW to do so.
Cue Jameson’s theories of late capitalism and commodification and other theories of signification and purposeful assignation of meanings to various elements.
Well said, Jaymee. And you’ve stated something I’ve understated in my article – I advocate the choice of viewing steampunk as an aesthetic. Obviously, as per a later comment in this thread, it can also be viewed as a genre, but I find that gets messy fast.
@Jaymee. Again, I was simply surprised that Mike was perceiving a position that I see as still fighting for recognition to be so dominant in the discourse.
I agree that the political is always present, even in its absence on an overt level. What I was referencing is that there are many steampunk works that I see as more directly political in their deliberate engagement with particular social issues to do with Empire, the Industrial Revolution and its fallout, and etc. (and I think you know from our conversations in other contexts I am significantly invested in these), and then there are writers like Gail Carriger (to take Mike’s example), who I enjoy and don’t want to dismiss, but who I tend to read as more playful. Of course, she *is* still engaging interestingly with gender and sexuality, among other issues, and at some point I intend to sit down and reread her books with an eye to thinking more about that and about the relationship between the supernatural and government/empire in her worldbuilding. But my first response to a first read of a new book by her is more about “ooh, what’s happening next?” (thus, joyful entertainment) whereas there are many other texts where I am overtly considering the political issues from page one, reading one.
Catherine, which steampunk works do you see as “directly political in their deliberate engagement with particular social issues”? I’m curious, as you cited Carriger as an example of the other side, and would enjoy an example of the overtly political in steampunk.
Indeed you did! My bad. I hear it an awful lot, but I don’t know if it’s common. I think there are equal parts bad assumption of either polemic among critics, as they only read a selection of steampunk and then draw conclusions. It works well for academics to say it glorifies colonialism, because then they can draw on a large body of post-colonial criticism. That’s some of the academic game – how do you get the pop culture to converse with the big head thinkers?
I totally agree with the last two sentences. The trouble is, as a modern indie writer, I have to be both publisher and artist. So deal with both genre and aesthetic I must.
“how do you get the pop culture to converse with the big head thinkers?”
Simply put Mike, you don’t. That’s the status quo of any debate, isn’t it? Steampunk, Star Wars, the Whedonverse, Sherlock Holmes, Twilight, British Arrogance in post-revolution North American Expansionism, The Communism Fallacy of the Twentieth Century, name a topic, and you’ll have the “pop” interpretation, and the big heads.
You almost need to shrug off the pop culture stuff if you’re a big head, and vice versa (although I don’t think the poppy types care so much about those nearsighted labcoated, big heads).
I’m not speaking about pop versions vs. academic versions, but rather, academic discourse on pop culture. Unless I’m misunderstanding you, Stuart, you seem to be talking about something else.
no, I was talking pop v academic. Your clarification basically makes the entire point moot. Just ignore it lol
I think I disagree with the premise of this article – not that Steampunk is an aesthetic, but that it being an aesthetic is somehow antithetical to it also being a genre.
Unstated but implied in this article is the predicate that a genre is something that we can know with clarity and precision, that the boundaries of genre are knowable, well-defined, and generally agreed upon.
If that were the case, there never would have been genre-wars. There never would be endless blog posts and commentary on what is or is not this or that genre – including what is or is not Steampunk, but I’d leave that out of a general analysis of the question if I were using it as evidence for why this predicate does not make sense for discounting Steampunk as a genre.
My point is, genre is not something that is ever easily-defined. There are disagreements about what is or is not this or that genre. It’s part of this process that leads to the splitting and subdividing of genre so that today the hiearchy of Speculative Fiction is a convoluted and inbred mess. Once there was only Science Fiction. Then there was Science Fiction and Fantasy – clearly related but different.
My point is that simply citing the fact that people disagree over what is or is not Steampunk, which is a major thrust of the argument this article makes, is not evidence that Steampunk is not a genre. If that were the case, Science Fiction and Fantasy were never genres – people still argue over their definitions even today. Eventually, a general consensus will form – as it has for other SF&F – but even then it will be pretty hard to nail down and codify. Already, I suspect, Steampunk is subdividing, as Fantasy and Science Fiction did before it.
More power to you, Stephen. I started out using the genre approach, and it got fuzzy very quickly. I’ve taught SF, so I know what you mean about the difficulty of defining that genre. The problem I identified early on with steampunk was that it was playing in a number of genre backyards, and people were debating which backyard it belonged to. SF? Fantasy? Horror? Romance? High Lit? It’s been all of the above, so I wondered about viewing it as an aesthetic instead. I did argue it wasn’t a genre at one point, but I think that was excessive. Now I’m just saying, here’s another way to look at it, because I think it’s more useful in describing all the media steampunk is expressed through. The genre term will only adequately apply to narrative expressions, and I was looking for a way to talk about the fashion and art as well. Steampunk is subdividing, but the aesthetic largely remains the same. When someone points at something and says, “steampunk,” they usually mean those three elements in varying degrees of synthesis.
@Mike: sorry to break the thread; there was no “reply” button above your question. Perhaps I should have said texts with more overt political issues? The Difference Engine — all kinds of issues engaging with the Industrial Revolution, with government and political parties — the Rad Lords, in particular — etc. Cherie Priest’s series has lots of class and race and gender issues, of course, and the political issues surrounding her extended Civil War. If one counts China Mieville’s Bas-Lag books as steampunk, they of course contain a great deal with the politics of New Crobuzon and etc. Boilerplate is basically a series of historical/political/technological engagements. Etc.
Of course, the more I sit here and think about Carriger’s books, the more I think . . . oh, and of course there are pack politics, and inter . . . um, supernatural? . . . politics . . . in addition to what I mentioned above.
No problem – just click on the last reply button in a thread (in that case, Jaymee’s), and it will keep it going. I had the same problem momentarily.
Yes, agreed on your examples, and yes, the more I think on Carriger, the more I see beneath the surface. But I think that can be read into any text. Both careful and careless writers can warrant such attention. I’d say more on Carriger’s potential social-political connotations, but I’m saving it for an article submission.
Oh, good! I was just thinking that part of my quick response that “Carriger = fun” is related to the audience response that I see on Goodreads and the various forums (LJ, FB, etc.) and that I really wanted to read a more serious analysis of her stuff. I shall look forward to it!
Nicely put and nicely written. I commend your words and agree in full. I get tired of trying to explain to folks “what is steampunk.” Now I have a good article to point at. Thanks!
Excellent article, thank you. Definitely worth the read and worth chewing over in my thoughts though methinks that I am more comfortable thinking of it as an aesthetic. You’ve put it into exquisite words, good sir.
A note, however, if I may about the ‘punk’ in Steampunk. In discussion with those old punks who are new steampunks or who are familiar with the aesthetic [or perhaps the subculture, if I might dare] it is oft not the political that is looked to for the connection [in the circles I wander], but two other very important facets of punk that have carried over:
1/ The DIY ethic. The desire or, in some, the need to build it themselves. Ignoring the mass produced fare in favour of something made with one’s own two hands. In the beginning punk was all DIY until it became commercialized, just as is happening with steampunk [etsy, media attention, designers experimenting with, etc] though it’s happening a little slower in this current case we think.
2/ Rebellion against mainstream culture through the subculture. While the reaction in the punk movement was primarily political it did depend on where, geographically, one looked at the punk movement. It was different in the UK from what it was in the US and still further from Canada or France or where have you. It has been noticed that many steampunks seem to be rebelling [oft in a polite way] against the modern consumer based, high tech, plastic and disposable world of the six day work week where everything must be done today and our internet based society is fueled by caffeine, designer drugs, sound bites and immediate gratification. It is mostly a rebellion through a stepping away, an escapism more literary than musical in the case of steampunk but there are definite similarities.
Or at least this is what a large number of us old punks have posited. We could be wrong *grin*