June 1, 2012

Steampunk Industrial Revolution, PortCon & Fashion Talks

A couple of cons coming up this month, and a special announcement:

In two weeks the revolution returns to Nashua, New Hampshire: the Steampunk Industrial Revolution will be telegraphed from June 8-10. From what I’ve heard, the theme is “Year of the Dragon” and the convention is preparing for an inter-dimensional beast to who visits this realm once every twelve years…with the smoldering threat coming from the heavens, can enough clockwork gadgets and a pirate ship bar be enough for this weekend? Yup, immersive storytelling strikes again at this con, and I’m looking forward to it.

The con schedule isn’t up yet, but I know that I’ll be doing my standard panels, plus a couple new in-character ones (you’ll have to come to see what they’re about…) — and hanging out with cool folks such as Guest of Honor Dr. Grymm,  The Wandering Legion of the Thomas Tew, Jake von Slatt, Mr. Saturday & Sixpence, Platform One, and many, many more musicians, entertainers and other ne’er-do-wells!

And as a reminder later that month, I will be in PortCon in Maine from June 21 – 24, where Lucretia Dearfour and I will be their Steampunk Guests of Honor.

I’ll be hanging around this weekend, presenting two new events:

Costume as Character, Character as Costume - Friday 11 AM – 12 PM in the Monhegan Room
Steampunk Meetup – Sunday 10 AM – 11 AM in the Monhegan Room

Plus, news from the ivory tower: I am very excited to announce that Fashion Talks: Undressing the Power of Style is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com!

Waaaaay back in 2009 (!), Jaymee Goh and I co-wrote an article about the imperialist — and postcolonial — leanings in steampunk fashion, our first academic venture together. Now, the anthology is it included in —  Fashion Talks: Undressing the Power of Style from SUNY Press – can be pre-ordered on Amazon.com and will pub in September! Fashion Talks is all about the roles race, class, gender, and sexuality play in everyday style, and the other chapters range from Lolita and goth to hijabs and stripper shoes to emo and hipsters & more. If you are into fashion, pop culture, politics, and how all three collide, this book is for you. Read the description after the jump.

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May 27, 2012

Aetherfest 2012 Review–Guest blog by Kevin Steil, the Airship Ambassador

Note: This review is cross-posted with permission from the Airship Ambassador.

When AetherFest’s chairmen, Pablo Vazquez and Cameron Hare, invited me as a guest to AetherFest in San Antonio, Texas, I instantly thought of three things:

“The stars at night

Are big and bright,

Deep in the heart of Texas!”

And then Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure when he went to find his stolen bicycle in the basement of the Alamo (Note: Alamo website plays music and sounds).

And finally this:

Oops, wait, wrong city.

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May 22, 2012

Cross-posting Partnership with Xerposa

Now that graduation has happened, I can take a break from academia for awhile, and you’ll start seeing more new content here (yay!). Also, it’s my pleasure to announce a new cross-posting partnership. As you may already know, this blog already shares a cross-posting partnership with the race & pop culture blog Racialicious. In addition, a selection of Beyond Victoriana‘s articles will also be featured on Xerposa, the newest steampunk news resource site.  And what are they all about? Well, in their words–

Xerposa is the blog that gives steampunk fans what they need – a place that gathers fashion, art, literature, and the latest genre-appropriate costumes and gadgets all in one place. Our articles feature the newest up-and-coming movers and shakers in steampunk, as well as the latest in gear, clothing, games, bands, and electronics. Read More.

So feel free to check out their content, and follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

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May 16, 2012

Anti-Fascist dieselpunk II- The Italo-Abyssinian War–Guest blog by P. Djeli Clark

Note: This is second in a two-part series, cross-posted with permission from The Disgruntled Haradrim. Check on Part 1 about Anti-Fascism and  the Spanish Civil War here. 

After my last posting on Anti-Fascist dieselpunk and the Spanish Civil War, which owed much to Steampunk Emma Goldman’s original blog, I began thinking about the other great anti-fascist struggle also lost in the shadow of WWII. In 1935, before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Mussolini’s Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia–one of the few African territories at the time not under European colonial control. The brutal attack on Ethiopia (then also called Abyssinia), which employed poison gas and flame throwers on civilian populations, was partly strategic, and also revenge–for an Italy still smarting from their humiliating defeat by Ethiopian forces at the Battle of Adwa in 1896. While the near impotent League of Nations remained shamefully complicit in their refusal to denounce Mussolini or allow arms to a beleaguered Ethiopia, outrage was heard from throughout the black diaspora. Ethiopia had long functioned as a symbolic political and cultural historical site in black popular culture, politics and thought; and the invasion by Italy was seen by many as an attack on the entire ”black world.”

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May 13, 2012

Anti-Fascist Dieselpunk and the Spanish Civil War–Guest blog by P. Djeli Clark

Note: This is first in a two-part series, cross-posted with permission from The Disgruntled Haradrim. Check on Part 2 about Anti-Fascism and  Ethiopia on Wednesday!

I was watching Guillermo del Toro’s excellent dark fantasy realism flick, El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth) the other day, and it reminded of an excellent blog article I read on Emma Goldman and dieselpunk late last year. Huh, you ask? Yes, like a Third Stage Guild Navigator, my mind “moves in strange directions.” Stay with me, and I’ll connect the dots….

Guillermo del Toro’s tragic tale, told through the eyes of an imaginative little girl named Ofelia, is set during the brutal Franco regime in the wake of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), a conflict that is almost lost in the long shadow cast by WW2. Yet like Mussolini’s brutal campaign against Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War was one of the first battlegrounds against fascism. While Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy supported the right-wing General Francisco Franco, with weapons and bombing campaigns, the leftist Republican government was supported in part by France, Mexico and the Soviet Union.

Beyond nation-states, brigades of international volunteers also flocked to fight what they saw as a war against fascism. Some forty thousand men and women from fifty-two countries, many of them socialists, communists and radicals, traveled to Spain to join the International Brigades in support of the anti-fascist Republican government. Some 2,800 of them were from the United States, and served in what was called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

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May 7, 2012

Announcing the Peter & The Starcatcher Giveaway Winners!

Just a quick post to announce the three winners for our Peter & the Starcatcher ticket giveaway! All from New York:

Linda T.

Sarah P.

Adrienne O.

Congrats to the winners and thanks to everyone who entered! :)

And, as a quick reminder, this weekend is the Watch City Festival in Waltham, MA!  My schedule is already up, and hope to see some of you readers there. :)

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May 6, 2012

Filming “The Taste of Heaven”: An Interview with PROPS! and Paul Maupoux

Earlier last month, I checked out the newest music video from PROPS!, a hip-hop artist based in Seattle and enjoyed his use of the steampunk aesthetic. More than “insert gears here,” it told an engaging storyline, featured local talent, and the song itself — about romantic longing and loss — seems more appropriate for a steampunk music video than, say, an autotuned command to “turn me on.” I had the opportunity to interview both PROPS! and the director of the music video Paul Maupoux, both relative newcomers to the scene, about the experience filming “The Taste of Heaven.”

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May 2, 2012

The Sunshine Steam: An Account of the Inaugural Florida Steampunk Society Exhibition East, Part 2–Guest blog by S.J. Chambers

Note: This is Part 2 of a two-part series about S.J.’s steampunk adventures in Florida. Read Part 1 here.

Abney Park at the Florida Steampunk Society Exhibition East, Daytona Beach Resort, Florida.

The main event was Saturday night.  Opening with Cog is Dead, an intermission performance by local artist Perego, the audience was thoroughly warmed up for headliners Abney Park. This was my first time seeing the “quintessential” Steampunk band live, and I was really impressed with how the band’s energy fed into the audience and vice versa.

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April 29, 2012

The Sunshine Steam: An Account of the Inaugural Florida Steampunk Society Exhibition East–Guest blog by S.J. Chambers

Note: This is Part 1 of a two-part series about S.J.’s steampunk adventures in Florida. Stay tuned Wednesday this week for the rest!

Dr. Imro: Impressive medicine cabinet of Dr. Imro, Provider of epic potions, tablets, and lotions. Made to be worn like a backpack for house calls.

When I first heard there was going to be a Florida Steampunk convention, I had two reactions. The first was “Yay! Home state representing.”  Second was, “What on Earth would Florida Steampunk be, exactly?”  Would it be corset jumpers and flip-flops? Solar blocking monocles and Mecha-Gator surf boards? There was only one way to get an answer, and it was to check it out myself.

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April 25, 2012

Conventions Alert: Steampunk Empire Symposium this weekend! Plus, Watch City Festival & PortCon Maine

A quick note about some new and upcoming conventions where I’ll be at—

This weekend I’ll be at the Steampunk Empire Symposium as a guest speaker. Looking forward to seeing authors Leanna Renee Hieber and Emilie P Bush, artist Myke Amend, Lord Bobbins of TeslaCon, Steampunk Boba Fett, and rocking to the Extraordinary Contraptions, This Way to Egress, Frenchy & the Punk and the polka-ballads of Veronique Chevalier! And I’m also very, very curious about this tea-duelling thing doing on…  and looking for a Skyline Diner for some Cincinnati Chili. :)

I’ll be presenting in the Stratford Theater:

Friday, 10 PM  – Steampunk in Anime
Saturday 11 AM – Steam Around the World: Steampunk Beynd Victoriana
Saturday 2 PM — Envisioning a Better Steam Society – Steampunk & Social Justice Issues

Next in May, I’ll be at the Watch City Festival May 12 & 13 in Waltham, MA presenting with Jaymee Goh!

My schedule:

Saturday:
CDIA (Front Gallery) 11 AM — Steam Around the World: Steampunk Beyond Victoriana (with Jaymee)
Indian Market 5 PM — The Wandering Legion Presents: A Roast of Baron von Lahey

Sunday:

CDIA (Screening Room) 1 PM —  Culture Shocks: Is Steampunk Really a Subculture?
CDIA (Screening Room) 3 PM – Envisioning a Better Steam Society – Steampunk & Social Justice Issues (with Jaymee)


Annnnnd on June, a new convention for me: PortCon in Maine from June 21 – 24, where Lucretia Dearfour and I will be their Steampunk Guests of Honor.

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