Open AccessReview of Claire Nally's Steampunk: Gender, Subculture and the Neo-Victorian. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.
Author(s) -
Megen de Bruin-Molé
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
c21 literature
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2045-5224
pISSN - 2045-5216
DOI - 10.16995/c21.3391
Subject(s) - ambivalence , subculture (biology) , spectacle , trope (literature) , sociology , politics , gender studies , media studies , aesthetics , art , literature , political science , psychoanalysis , law , psychology , botany , biology
In a world where ‘Victorian Values’ serve as an established trope to be satirised, but are also becoming frighteningly central to conservative political logics once more, Claire Nally’s Steampunk: Gender, Subculture & the Neo-Victorian offers a timely and welcome reflection on the possibilities and limitations of the mode. Nally imposes some much-needed structure onto this ‘ambivalent and contradictory discourse’ (107), problematising the idea of steampunk media and culture as ‘revolutionary’ while still highlighting the cultural importance of steampunk as both story and spectacle.