Queer Hedge School Presentation: What is Steampunk?

2. TODAY’S SPEAKER
DR LISA HAGER

3. What is Steampunk?

4. Jeter, K.W. Letter. Locus 20.4 (1987): 57.

9. Pg 205—Margaret “Magpie” Killjoy
Steampunk, as a subculture and as an aesthetic, is at its best
when it is a way of radically readdressing the ways that we
interact with technology. A way of challenging the
assumptions of the industrial revolution. Which is probably
more important right now, and over the next ten years, than
it has ever been in human history. Top-down approaches to
industry have backed our species into a corner (and outright
wiped out thousands of others).
VanderMeer, Jeff and S. J. Chambers. The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature. New
York: Abrams Image, 2011.
The Queer Future of Steampunk

10. Pg 213—Diana M. Pho (Ay-Ieen the Peacemaker)
“Steampunks are attracted to the genre for its ambiguity as
well: that innovative technology created damaging
pollution, that buildings and bridges and railroads were
built at the expense of poor immigrant workers, that
expansion grew because of slavery and colonialism.”
Moreover, “Steampunks are willing to break the patterns of
the past. That is what differentiates Steampunks from neo-
Victorians, in my opinion.”
VanderMeer, Jeff and S. J. Chambers. The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature. New
York: Abrams Image, 2011.
The Queer Future of Steampunk