Ebook Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature: Steampunk, Alternate-History, and Nineteenth-Century Digital Humanities by Roger Whitson in TXT, FB2, DJV
9781138859500 1138859508 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., Steampunk is more than a fandom, a literary genre, or an aesthetic. It is a research methodology turning history inside out to search for alternatives to the progressive technological boosterism sold to us by Silicon Valley. This book turns to steampunk's quirky temporalities to embrace diverse genealogies of the digital humanities and to unite their methodologies with nineteenth-century literature and media archaeology. The result is nineteenth-century digital humanities, a retrofuturist approach in which readings of steampunk novels like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling'sãee The Difference Engineãee and ãee Ken Liu'sãee The Grace of Kings ãeecollide with nineteenth-century technological histories like Charles Babbage's use of the difference engine to enhance worker productivity and Isabella Bird Bishop's spirit photography of alternate history China.ãee Along the way,ãee Steampunk and Nineteenth-Century Digital Humanities ãeeconsiders steampunk as a public form of digital humanities scholarship and activism, examining projects like Kinetic Steam Works's reconstruction of Henri Giffard's 1852 steam-powered airship, Jake von Slatt's use of James Wimshurst's 1880 designs to create an electric influence machine, and the queer steampunk activism of fans appearing at conventions around the globe.ãeeSteampunk as a digital humanities practice of repurposing reacts to the growing sense of multiple non-human temporalities mediating our human histories: microtemporal electricities flowing through our computer circuits, mechanical oscillations marking our work days, geological stratifications and cosmic drifts extending time into the millions and billions of years.ãeeExcavating the entangled, anachronistic layers of steampunk practice from video games likeãee Bioshock Infinite ãeeto marine trash floating off the shore of Los Angeles and repurposed by media artist Claudio Garzón into steampunk submarines,ãee Steampunk and Nineteenth-Century Digital Humanitiesãee uncovers the various technological temporalities and multicultural retrofutures illuminating many alternate histories of the digital humanities.ãee
9781138859500 1138859508 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., Steampunk is more than a fandom, a literary genre, or an aesthetic. It is a research methodology turning history inside out to search for alternatives to the progressive technological boosterism sold to us by Silicon Valley. This book turns to steampunk's quirky temporalities to embrace diverse genealogies of the digital humanities and to unite their methodologies with nineteenth-century literature and media archaeology. The result is nineteenth-century digital humanities, a retrofuturist approach in which readings of steampunk novels like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling'sãee The Difference Engineãee and ãee Ken Liu'sãee The Grace of Kings ãeecollide with nineteenth-century technological histories like Charles Babbage's use of the difference engine to enhance worker productivity and Isabella Bird Bishop's spirit photography of alternate history China.ãee Along the way,ãee Steampunk and Nineteenth-Century Digital Humanities ãeeconsiders steampunk as a public form of digital humanities scholarship and activism, examining projects like Kinetic Steam Works's reconstruction of Henri Giffard's 1852 steam-powered airship, Jake von Slatt's use of James Wimshurst's 1880 designs to create an electric influence machine, and the queer steampunk activism of fans appearing at conventions around the globe.ãeeSteampunk as a digital humanities practice of repurposing reacts to the growing sense of multiple non-human temporalities mediating our human histories: microtemporal electricities flowing through our computer circuits, mechanical oscillations marking our work days, geological stratifications and cosmic drifts extending time into the millions and billions of years.ãeeExcavating the entangled, anachronistic layers of steampunk practice from video games likeãee Bioshock Infinite ãeeto marine trash floating off the shore of Los Angeles and repurposed by media artist Claudio Garzón into steampunk submarines,ãee Steampunk and Nineteenth-Century Digital Humanitiesãee uncovers the various technological temporalities and multicultural retrofutures illuminating many alternate histories of the digital humanities.ãee