Demonstrating how nineteenth-century literary history works when confronted by technological repurposing, electronic-based object work, alternate history, and non-human temporalities, this is the first book to theorize approaches to steampunk’s histories and technologies as tools that can be appropriated in a research context. This book examines how the development of steampunk parallels similar developments in the digital humanities, such as an interest in computational forms of temporality, a turn towards hands-on material research, and an embrace of conjectural or "what-if?" thinking. Whitson argues for a properly digital and conjectural approach to nineteenth-century literary history, emphasizing the alternate possibilities derived from steampunk technology, literature, and culture. Showing the interplay between the present and the past, Whitson presents a range of authors, programmers, and technological designers navigating the complexities of alternate history. Some of these complexities include confronting colonialist technological design, investigating alternatives to ecological sustainability narratives dominating technological development, exploring the role of quirky practices like constructing Babbage’s analytical engine using Lego parts, illustrating the use of Victorian authors in addressing academic labor issues in the digital humanities, and creating a computer using only the technological affordances found in the nineteenth century. This book turns to the alternate histories and materialities of steampunk as a model for engaging in nineteenth-century digital humanities as a form of inquiry combining literary scholarship, material tinkering, and conjectural exploration. The volume constructs a digital humanities methodology incorporating the historical potential found in the nineteenth century, while also exploring the power of history to conjecture alternatives to the present.
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Science Fiction Rebels: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1981 to 1990
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Science Fiction Criticism: An Anthology of Essential Writings
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May the Armed Forces Be With You: The Relationship Between Science Fiction and the United States Military
$1,348 -
Octavia E. Butler
$990 -
Biopunk Dystopias: Genetic Engineering, Society, and Science Fiction
$5,400 -
Like Clockwork: Steampunk Pasts, Presents, and Futures
$1,125 -
Brave New World: Contexts and Legacies
$4,050 -
Alice in Transmedia Wonderland: Curiouser and Curiouser New Forms of a Children’s Classic
$2,025 -
The History of Science Fiction
$4,725 -
Before Einstein: The Fourth Dimension in Fin-de-Siècle Literature and Culture
$5,175 -
Imagining Urban Futures: Cities in Science Fiction and What We Might Learn from Them
$978 -
The Child to Come: Life After the Human Catastrophe
$1,125 -
The Law of Superheroes
$350 -
The Perversity of Things: Hugo Gernsback on Media, Tinkering, and Scientifiction
$1,575 -
Time Travel
$1,400 -
The Physics and Astronomy of Science Fiction: Understanding Interstellar Travel, Teleportation, Time Travel, Alien Life and Othe
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The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy
$350 -
Apocalyptic Fiction
$1,348 -
Science Fiction, New Space Opera, and Neoliberal Globalism: Nostalgia for Infinity
$5,625 -
Discworld and Philosophy: Reality Is Not What It Seems
$698