Image courtesy of kerembeyit on DeviantArt. Click for link.

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!

Photo credit: Christopher Lovenguth

In our round-up for steampunk events in January, the description for the theater production Miranda was certain intriguing to me. Murder mysteries are always fun, but a steampunk murder mystery? That’s an opera? Where all of the actors play their own instruments? Some criticize steampunk style as being too cluttered for its own good; Miranda sounded very much like an overwrought outfit, tooled too elaborately to satisfy. And yet, all of these elements drew me to the HERE theater space in NYC to watch last Friday’s show. Frankly, Miranda managed to take all of the aspects of what steampunk is – thematically, aesthetically, and even, dare I say it, musically – and combine it to create a compelling smash powerhouse of a show.

[Welcome to jury duty for the New Federation of Northern States - Read the Rest on Tor.com]

Photo Credit: Christopher Lovenguth

Besides all of the steampunk’d renditions of Shakespeare plays and Gilbert & Sullivan musicals, how can steampunk work onstage? Recently, I stopped by the HERE theater to see one innovative example in the form of Miranda, a steampunk murder mystery opera. Tor.com will be posting my review of the show (EDIT: Here it is); sadly, the show is only running in NYC until Saturday the 21st, so I encourage anyone who has the opportunity to see this show to book their tickets ASAP. In the meantime, I took the wonderful opportunity of interviewing the creator, composer and co-librettist Kamala Sankaram and her fellow co-librettist and director Rob Reese about their inspiration behind this unique production.

After the jump, we’ll talk about steampunk dystopias, legal circuses, and the role of people of color in steampunk world-building.

About the interviewees:

Praised for the “sheer power” of her music (TimeOut NY), Kamala Sankaram’s compositions have been performed as part of American Opera Projects “Opera Grows in Brooklyn” series, at HERE Arts Center, the Stone, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the Santa Fe New Music Festival, and the Lucerne Festival. She had the featured commission on the 2009 21c Liederabend, selected as one of Time Out’s 10 Best Classical Concerts. Her music for SOUNDING (directed by Kristin Marting) was hailed as “gorgeous pop-rock interludes” (TimeOut NY). She was a 2011 Con Edison/Exploring the Metropolis Composer-in-Residence at the Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy. As a performer, Kamala Sankaram has collaborated with and premiered pieces by Anthony Braxton, the Philip Glass Ensemble, the Wooster Group, John Zorn, and eighth blackbird, among others.

Rob Reese’s work as a playwright, director and/or performer has been seen in eight countries on four continents (and counting). Credits include his adaptation of “Frankenstein”, the satires “Survivor: Vietnam!”, “Keanu Reeves Saves The Universe”, “Tad Granite, Private Eyeball” and “Invasion of the Yellow Menace”. His scriptless pieces include “Psycheroticproviholicyesandsomthinvoodoo”, “The Flatiron Scriptless Theater Laboratory” and “Three Plays In Search of a Script”. Rob Reese is currently developing the musical revue “Yahweh’s Follies” with composers Matt Schloss and Eric Brenner, starring Kamala Sankaram. Interested producers and backers are encouraged to approach Rob directly. Rob must thank Kamala for drafting him, the entire company for their amazing hard work and talent, Fred (as usual), and his amazing Jenn. Some of Rob’s scripts can be found on indietheaternow.com.

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Welcome to Beyond Victoriana! Miranda is one of the most creative uses of the steampunk aesthetic I’ve seen in theater in a long time, and so it’s a pleasure to be able to speak with you both about this production. To get started, how did you two first meet and start on creating Miranda?

ROB: Kamala and I first met while working on a show for The Wooster Group: myself as a technical artist and her as an actor/singer/musician. We have each collaborated on many other projects with many other people (and continue to do so). This is our first fully-realized project together. Our partnership began a couple of years ago when Kamala asked me to help with text on a smaller project (or two). Kamala had been developing Miranda for some time before she brought me on board, first to help with some text and later to also direct. This project soon took precedence over our other nascent ideas, all of which are still rolling around in our heads and our notebooks.

KAMALA: We first met each other while working on the Wooster Group show La Didone. Rob asked me to do a reading of an early draft of Yahweh Follies, and we discovered that we had similar sense of humor. So, I invited Rob to work with me on a song cycle. It was going to be called “The Attestant” and it would be an exploration of the role of Twitter and Facebook in our perceptions of other people (done as a freak show!) But, sadly, we had to stop working on it because I was commissioned to write a big piece using another text and it fell by the wayside. However, I really liked it, so I decided to ask Rob to help me with the script for Miranda. And the rest is history! Next up, we may start an opera about Leon Theremin (with theremins).

Miranda certainly has a dystopian bent to its world-building that read as one part Hunger Games, one part Sterling & Gibson’s The Difference Engine, and one part Sweeney Todd. What were your inspirations (steampunk or otherwise) with creating the New Federation of Northern States?

ROB: That’s a very astute set of comparisons! Of course the gladiatorial death-as-entertainment aspect of The Hunger Games is very prevalent, and the grim (and even Grimm) story told through music aspect of Sweeny Todd is an unavoidable comparison. Visual aspects of the recent Burton version of Sweeney Todd has also provided some design inspiration.

The Sterling / Gibson inspiration is the most obvious, though. We very much utilized the “Difference Engine world” of the mid-19th century as the background of what would develop into our “modern” world of 2012. The strong British Empire and fragmented United States is an especially strong connection.

As there’s so much dystopian fiction in our collective conscious and sub-conscious, there are certainly plenty of inspirations handed down by Orwell, Huxley, Clarke and others. Some of which we’re conscious of, some of which might still be pointed out to us.

KAMALA: Agreed! Joss Whedon’s Firefly was also a huge inspiration for me… A way to create an alternate, sci-fi universe, but keeping it analog instead of digital, if that makes any sense.

The score was also a dynamic blend of various musical genres: I’m no expert on music, but I sensed elements of classical musical theater combined with funk and trip-hop. How would you both describe your musical influences?

ROB: Kamala is the composer, I take no credit for the amazing level of the music. I leave this question to her.

KAMALA: I think most people have a really diverse musical palette, especially with the ability to buy and stream things online. I’m a good case in point: I grew up listening to Telugu movie soundtracks and Carnatic music from my dad, and Debussy and Rachmaninoff from my mom. I discovered Pink Floyd at age 12 and quickly bought every album they ever made. By 14 I was obsessed with Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, and Alice in Chains (maybe I’m dating myself here…) My late teens were all about My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Mr. Bungle, the Pixies, Tom Waits, the Swans, Bjork, Radiohead, Portishead (many heads…) Godspeed, you black emperor, the Legendary Pink Dots… you get the picture. But at the same time, I was listening to Philip Glass, Stravinsky, Bartok, Monteverdi, and other more “classical” musicians. I’ve always had very eclectic tastes in music, so the music I write is inspired by and sometimes quotes all of these influences. Right now I’m listening to a lot of 60s Bollywood music and the new Tom Waits…

Photo credit: Christopher Lovenguth

Class and caste are satirized — at times, quite bitterly — in Miranda, especially with the creation of actor-musician legal proxies staffed by “lower class” players. How much did you visualize the impact of class when conceptualizing this world, and how closely do you relate it to the steampunk aesthetic?

ROB: The artists of the world of Miranda were always conceived as a lower class in this piece, but the concept of the intricate workings of class and caste didn’t materialize until we began to fully embrace and commit to the steampunk aesthetic. It’s not something I see explicitly referred to much in most steampunk worlds, but since the aesthetic generally romanticizes Victorian and Edwardian fashions and modes of behavior, it seemed a natural next step. Very prevalent in real world society of that time was a highly stratified and complex understanding of class. The concept that a poor citizen may be paid to stand trial as a proxy for a wealthy person is an actual historical tidbit from nineteenth-century England. It’s an element we feel comes generally from the aesthetic and works perfectly in the specific world we’re creating for this piece.

KAMALA: Agreed–the Victorian notion of a poor person serving the sentence of a rich person was an important foundation for the show. So, steampunk was a natural continuation of this idea because it already combined the Victorian aesthetic with sci-fi (another very important element in the show). And it gave me an excuse to wear a gorgeous costume (designed by Jacci Jaye), which is why we do opera in the first place, really…

A question for Kamala in particular: I find the presence of Miranda and Anjana’s Hindi & English songs quite refreshing to see in American musical theater. Moreover, Anjana’s identity as a non-white immigrant woman (and Miranda’s identity as a biracial “second-generation” daughter), adds a particularly fascinating faucet to this steampunk musical, especially since the sociopolitical placement of people of color is not typically addressed in imperialist worlds of steampunk. Would you care to elaborate further about this aspect?

KAMALA: Being a biracial, second-generation daughter myself, this is a topic that has always interested me. To what extent do you adopt the majority culture, and to what extent do you let it go? For Anjana, marrying someone of Izzy’s caste is a huge step up in the world. But, to hold on to it, she lets go of everything she’s worked for up until that point (including a medical degree) to devote herself to being his wife. At the same time, she has to work very hard to maintain the correct social veneer. One of the major themes in Miranda deals with identity–particularly the way that other people can construct an identity for you. Of all the characters, Anjana is most concerned with how people see her (a trait I’ve found to be common in many immigrants trying to fit in in an unfamiliar culture) and with how people see her daughter. And this concern is what may have led her to commit murder: choosing the reputation and social standing of her husband over the life of her daughter… or did it? I guess that’s for the audience to decide.

I heard that a cast CD and show DVD is in the works. When would these be available for purchase?

ROB: Unfortunately these won’t be available until after the run of the show, specific release dates are still TBD.

KAMALA: We’re also hoping to put up a company website in the next couple of weeks, which will contain release dates and purchase information.

After Miranda’s run ends at HERE, what plans do you have for the show’s future?

ROB: We don’t know for sure. We believe the piece would make for a great tour or for a long run “sit down” engagement at an off b’way theater, but for either of those eventualities to occur, we need help from producers and investors. Everyone is crossing fingers that people fitting those descriptions will come fall in love with the show as our regular audience members have been.

KAMALA: So, if you know any Merchant Princes, send them our way!

Thank you, Kamala and Rob, for taking the time to stop by the blog! Readers can purchase tickets for Miranda here and  find out more information about their work at the below links:

Miranda at the HERE theater
Kamala Sankaram’s official website: http://www.kamalasankaram.com/
Amnesia Wars, Rob Reese’s NYC-based performance troupe: http://www.amnesiawars.com/

In the beginning of the book, words like Iberian, clan, Beltane, poets, Romans, and Celtic bards, leap off the pages, flirting with my mind of what in our own history would mark the Celtic Iron Age. The first pages also disclose the titillating information that the main character, Cat, and her family are Phoenicians. There are few if any ancient cultures as mysterious as those daring sea-faring folks. The author stresses they are a people who can keep a secret and history has borne out the truth of that. The descriptions of her family home, the furnishings, her clothing, and the school she attends with her cousin Bee, along with their use of gaslight and the mention of airships alerts us to a time similar to the Victorian era in an alternative history. So I am intrigued from the start.

One fateful night a Cold Mage barges into Cat’s home in Expedition to reclaim ownership of what her aunt and uncle had generously been allowed to keep possession of: Cat. If her Phoenician family had not been so secretive she may have been better prepared for what happened next. Not wanting to spoil the plot, I won’t give away too much to those who have not read it, and if you haven’t then you should. As anyone can guess, the suspense heightens as Cat is bond to this stranger. When the Cold Mage takes her away, it changes everything. As Cat embarks on a quest to warn her cousin Bee of impending danger, she sets off on a path of self discovery, searching for her true family and her true self.

In the fascinating history of this alternative world, a battle between the Romans and the Phoenicians resulted in them keeping the sea ports while the empire of the Caesars kept the land. As the Empire grew weak, the Celts rebelled against their Roman rulers. The next major historical impact occurred when the Persians attacked North Africa and the Celtic princes in Europa welcomed the Phoenician refuges. About a hundred years later, a salt plague broke out near theSaharadesert and the North African tribes were attacked by ghouls, who rose from the salt mines. Those tribes fled and found friendship among the Celts due to similar magic and beliefs. The great mage houses grew out of this cultural blending.

Some refuges from the Mali Empire guided by Phoenician navigators sailed to a western continent full of human nations and in the north, trolls. Some of these people and trolls founded the city of Expedition on the sea of Antilles. There they embraced science and new technologies, which the mage houses deplored. In this dystopian society the princes of the newly industrialized cities and mages of the countryside control the people and the workers live in inhuman conditions. Radical new ideas of choosing your own council members, what we would call – making a living wage, and having choices about your own life spread among the people, fueled by the invention of a portable printing press. Mobs form and a rebellion begins.

Characters with white, brown, and black complexions and curly tight hair, coarse braided hair, and thin hair swept up in lime-washed spikes bring racial diversity to the story. There are vivid descriptions of cultural diversity as well with villages of Celtic round houses, horsemen wearing knee-length jackets with splendid turbans, and women in embroidered damask robes and elaborate coiffures of braids complemented by gold hoop earrings.

Kate Elliott refers to Cold Magic as “a mash-up of an Afro-Celtic post-Roman, icepunk Regency novel with airships, Phoenician spies, and the intelligent descendents of troodons (a small intelligent and agile species of dinosaurs)” referred to in the book as trolls. I call it a riveting adventure bursting with mystic fantasy. The writing is exquisite and I found the plot worked with ingenuous creativity. I loved it. I highly recommend Cold Magic. I’m eagerly looking forward to reading the next book in the Sprit Walker Trilogy, Cold Fire.

***

Maeve Alpin is the author of three Steampunk/Romance books: As Timeless As Stone, As Timeless As Magic, and To Love A London Ghost. Under the name Cornelia Amiri she has written ten Celtic/Romance books and one contemporary/romance set at Woodstock in 1969. Her Steampunk website is http://MaeveAlpin.com and you can contact her at MaeveAlpin@gmail.com.

Madam Efunroye Tinubu was among the most prominent and powerful Yoruba women in pre-colonial Nigeria (early to mid 19th century). Other renowned Yoruba women from that period were Iyalode Efunsetan Aniwura and Madam Omosa, both of whom deserve posts of their own.

Madam Tinubu was an Egba woman born to a trading family in Abeokuta (also known as Egbaland). After completing an apprenticeship, she headed to Badagry, Lagos where she started trading in tobacco and salt. She later expanded her trade to include slaves who she sold to European slave traders. As a shrewd businesswoman, Madam Tinubu became the most important middleman in trade between Europeans and the Yorubaland interior by creating large trading networks. Madam Tinubu’s wealth and connections led her to meddle in politics.

With her trade and wealth, she was able to lend support to military efforts, which in turn made her more powerful. Although she was not from Lagos, she began taking interest in Lagos politics. In 1846, King Akintoye of Lagos faced exile and sought refuge in Badagry with Madam Tinubu. Being the badass that she was, Madam Tinubu ignited and supported a movement to return King Akintoye to regain the throne he had lost, she was successful.

In 1851, after regaining his throne King Akintoye invited Madam Tinubu to Lagos where she further expanded her business and political activities. Due to her influence in Akintoye’s court, rumours abounded that Madam Tinubu was the real power behind the throne. Madam Tinubu’s influence was such that when Prince Dosunmu succeeded King Akintoye, she continued to hold a space in Lagos politics.

Today Madam Tinubu is called a patriot by some, I am not too comfortable with that term because technically there was no ‘Nigeria’ when she was alive. However, Madam Tinubu did take a stance against the British in their efforts to further flex their colonial muscles into Yorubaland. In 1855, she spearheaded a campaign against Brazilian and Sierra Leonean immigrants in Lagos who she felt were actively trying to oppose the King and did not respect local customs. Apparently, her actions against these immigrants worried the British (who had been keeping an eye on her since she helped King Akintoye regain this throne). By supporting the local king and insisting that foreign residents respect local customs, Madam Tinubu’s activities were getting in the way of British colonial and mission policies. In 1856, colonial authorities in Lagos deported her from Lagos to her home town, Abeokuta in 1856.

I believe it was in Abeokuta that Madam Tinubu developed and adopted a staunchly anti-British stance. She eventually stopped selling slaves to the Europeans, it seems, after she learnt of the ‘evils of transatlantic slavery’, that is, the differences between the treatment of domestic slaves and those sold to the Europeans. Apparently she fought European slave traders to liberate slaves in Lagos and thereabouts however there is no mention if Madam Tinubu liberated the slaves she owned when she became anti-imperialist.

In Abeokuta, she traded gunpowder, bullets and other firearms (she also traded in palm oil and food produced on her massive plantations). She concerned herself with the Abeokuta-Dahomey wars that were taking place at that time, and through doing so became involved in Egba politics. Madam Tinubu would make loans to the army and supply food and arms during wartime. She was also in charge of the market place in times of peace. She contributed to defending Egbaland during attempts at Dahomean invasion in 1863 after which she was bestowed the title of ‘Iyalode’ in 1864 officially placing her in a position of power. She was the second woman to receive this title.

She died in 1887, at the height of her popularity.

Today, Madam Tinubu has several monuments dedicated to her, in Abeokuta, one stands ‘in the town square named after her Ita Iyalode.

There seem to be conflicting dates on when exactly a colonial government was established in Nigeria (and dare I say other parts of Africa as well). I have noticed that a lot of people place colonial governments actually earlier than they were. This supports the idea that from the beginning African and Europeans economic and political relations were unequal. The academic essay I read places Madam Tinubu as a pre-colonial Yoruba heroine who has a lot of information on her because her alliances and political activities, including her anti-colonial stance worried the British.

At this point, I am about to discuss the main reason I’m writing this post. Recently there was a debate on Facebook with several Nigerians saying that we shouldn’t be celebrating Madam Tinubu because of her trade in slaves. Some people argued that Madam Tinubu could not be patriotic if she was selling slaves to Europeans. Someone went as far as comparing her to Hitler. From the start, the entire discussion unsettled me.

You see, a long time ago I came across Madam Tinubu while searching on Yoruba women in history, but I only learnt of her as a trader in slaves and firearms. At that time, I decided to ignore her due to her part in the transatlantic slave trade. The source I read only described Madam Tinubu as a powerful Yoruba woman who sold slaves and firearms, there was no mention of her ventures in politics and the fact that those British colonials were, truth be told, scared of her.

I am not a fan of selective information. With people arguing that we should ignore Madam Tinubu’s anti-colonial efforts, I feel that now or in the future people may only know her as a slave-trading woman. It has taken me months, literally to articulate my thoughts and opinions on Madam Tinubu and the rejection of her legacy by some Nigerians. I only hope I express my ideas clearly in this post.

Firstly, how many renowned women from Yoruba history exist in the minds of Yoruba and Nigerian people today? Apparently there are only THREE of them, as I mentioned above they are Iyalode Efunsetan Aniwura, Madam Omosa and Madam Tinubu. Is there readily available information on these women? Well no, not exactly I am yet to come across substantial information on Iyalode Efunsetan and Madam Omosa. It seems the only reason we know so much about Madam Tinubu is because the British colonialist kept dossiers on her. While searching for information on Iyalode Efunsetan, the only thing I kept coming across was how her name had been maligned by someone, she had been portrayed as a ‘bad’ woman in some way. Now, people are debating whether Madam Tinubu should be acknowledged. Is it bizarre that it looks to me like this kind of treatment is specially reserved for women in Nigerian history?

Would we be debating whether or not Madam Tinubu should be acknowledged as a powerful person in Nigerian history if she were male? For a while after following the debate, I was totally confused and feeling all sorts of emotions! I started looking at other personalities in ‘pop history’, that is the sanctioned popularised history, and compiling a list of all the now morally wrong things they did in their time. For example, why is it that no one is debating whether the Dahomey empire should be studied, admired, praised the empire’s rise and decline is directly linked to the transatlantic slave trade? Or should I cease appreciating the Dahomean Amazons because of this knowledge? Would that be the ‘right’ thing to do? Nzingha of Ndongo and Matamba reportedly killed her subjects at will and kept a harem of male concubines (slaves?) yet today we appreciate her efforts against the colonising efforts of the Portuguese. The interesting thing I found is that the a lot of those men and women who fought against European colonisation of Africa had at some point or the other sold slaves to Western buyers. This apparently includes my favourite history subject from secondary school, Samori Toure.

According to a friend of mine, I should ignore the entire debate around whether Madam Tinubu was a ‘patriot’ or not, an anti-imperialist or not, because every single important West African from that period of time had a part in the slave trade. Surprisingly, Wole Soyinka has an essay on ‘Africa’s role in the transatlantic slave trade’ in which he mentions this, that is the power some Africans in that period got from trading slaves. I do not entirely agree with his essay though, anyone who says Africans sold ‘our own people’ will automatically get a side eye from me.

What I am getting at is this, is it impossible for Madam Tinubu’s efforts against the British Colonial government to be celebrated despite her dealings in the transatlantic slave trade? I am not one for redemption stories to be honest but the fact that she became an abolitionist (it is not specified whether she was dedicated to liberating slaves headed towards Europe and America or the domestic slaves she owned…this opens another can of worms). I personally don’t think we should be having the debate at all.

What I read
Tinubu Square, Central Lagos. MADAM EFUNROYE TINUBU 
Denzer LaRay (1994), ‘Yoruba Women: A Historiographical Study’, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 1-39

Click after the jump for more details!

TempleCon will always have a special place in my heart for a very good reason. This year’s theme makes it even more exciting: post-apocalyptic. According to their website, they’re looking for the grit and ruin this year:

From the clean lines of the iconic vault suits of Raygun Gothic inspired Fallout, to the studded leather-and-steel chic look of Mad Max and other assorted post-nuclear fiction, we want to see you here looking like you just survived the end of the world, whatever that world may be.

You can check out the full list of guests here. Below are my panels that I’ll be doing:

Friday

Women In Steampunk
Location: Con Suite 2 (Room 607)
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
A discussion about female characters in steampunk literature and media. Are women in steampunk “feminist” or “traditional” in accordance with Victorian social roles? How about in today’s lens? We’ll talk about how women are represented and portrayed in various steampunk books and films, and give advice about what makes a female character believable, whether she’s a sky pirate, a countess, or a chimney sweep.

Envisioning A Better Steam Society
Location: Con Suite 2 (Room 607)
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM Free Unlimited
Featuring guest panelists Magpie Killjoy, Mr. Saturday, Monique Poirier, and Leanna Renee Heiber.
A discussion panel where panel participants discuss their thoughts about finding aesthetic inspiration in a historical era rife with sexism, racism and classist thinking. Can the steampunk subculture come to terms with its problematic past, or are we just repeating history, except with ray guns? Together with the audience, we hope to engage in an open dialogue about whether steampunk confronts or condones the historical ideas behind its inspiration, how nineteenth century thinking is re-interpreted in the present day, and what makes steampunk actually “punk.”

Saturday

Steam Around The World: Steampunk Beyond Victoriana
Location: Barrington
11:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Beyond Victoriana, what steampunk possibilities exist? Come join us as we take you on a trip around the world to see how steampunk manifests in the minds of those who don’t think within a Eurocentric context, whether they blend Western influences, or use recognizably steampunk elements within a distinct flavor outside of Europe. We will also approach the ethical challenges that come up when engaging in multicultural steampunk and discuss matters of race, privilege, and cultural appropriation.

Steampunks Around The World Unite: Steampunk Beyond Victoriana Photoshoot
Location: Rotunda
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
A casual meet & greet for those interested in multicultural steampunk. Come dressed in your non-Eurocentric best or bring ideas for discussion about potential outfits.

Sunday

The Meiji Era: A Japanese Industrial Revolution
Location: Barrington
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
A historical presentation talking about the technological developments during the Meiji Reconstruction Period, and how Japan’s Industrial Revolution has influenced its media and pop culture. Featuring various anime and films that address the Meiji Era, including Rorouni Kenshin, Moeyo Ken, When the Last Sword is Drawn and more.

Culture Shocks: Is Steampunk Really A Subculture?
NEW PANEL PREMIERE! – (This is based off my grad work, so be prepared!)
Location: Con Suite 2 (Room 607)
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM
We all debate the meaning of the word “steampunk” and the meaning of its subculture. But has anyone wondered whether steampunk itself qualifies under the definition of “subculture?” What’s the difference between calling it a counterculture, an aesthetic movement, or a fad? We’ll talk about the history of subculture and the roles that mass media, postmodernism, consumerism, and style play in defining the steampunk community today.

In April, I’ll have to take a pass on Anime Boston this year in prep for my first presentation at the Pop Culture Association / American Culture Association’s national conference. I’ll be giving an academic rework of my well-known “Race Matters in Amestis” presentation (now with 75% more footnotes!) as part of the Science Fiction/Fantasy area. You can read the abstract below:

Race Matters in Amestris: On the Treatment of Disenfranchised Minorities in Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist

One of the most popular anime franchises in Japan and North America is Fullmetal Alchemist, based on the manga written by Hiromu Arakawa. The manga has been produced as two separate series: a 51-episode run that aired from 2003 – 2004 (“FMA”) and a 64-episode reboot titled Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood that aired from 2009 – 2010 (“FMA:B”). While both storylines center on a pair of alchemist brothers in the country of Amestris, politics concerning the treatment of marginalized groups play a crucial role. Moreover, the contrasting attitudes FMA and FMA:B have in how characters of color are represented visually and in terms of character development reveal how Arakawa’s world-building has been re-interpreted to express two dynamically different understandings concerning the sociopolitical agency granted to the racialized other. For this paper, I will analyze how FMA and FMA:B ‘s use of traditional speculative conceits influence their takes on race relations and investigate the dramatic effectiveness of each storyline’s message about discrimination.  In FMA, alternative universes are used as a narrative twist, and racially-motivated atrocities in their world echo historical ones in ours. In the secondary fantasy world of FMA:B, however, the “master race” becomes literalized with the Homunculi, a group of alchemy-created superhumans. Each series’ handling of difference contributes toward a multifaceted global understanding of race as both series engage in the cultural intersection between nationally-targeted forms of entertainment and its consumption by international audiences.

Yes, this is proof that my geekery and my grad school work is melding together quite nicely. So if you will be attending this year, please drop me a line. I’d love to connect at the conference. (And George Takei — George freakin‘  Takei — is going to be the Guest of Honor Speaker this year. I will try not to stalk.)

In October, I’ll be flying out to Octopodicon as their “Distinguished Professor of Steampunk Multiculturalism” (the title is quite flattering, actually). I’ll be joining maker Dr. Grymm, musician Professor Elemental and many more guest professors.

Illustration by Paul Sizer. Click for link.

Best wishes for 2012, everyone — here’s to working for better artistic & imaginative possibilities in the year to come!

Thanks go out to artist Paul Sizer for permission to post his amazing art. His wife Jane Irwin is also the creator behind the online graphic novel Clockwork Game, about a chess-playing automaton in the 18th and 19th centuries. Both are worth checking out. ^_^

"Beis Midrash" by Boris Dubrov. Click for source.

“Hey, did you know giraffes are kosher?”

This made worldwide news in 2008, when a rabbi certified that giraffe milk was indeed kosher. The giraffe chews its cud and has split hooves, and its milk curdles.

Thus: kosher! How wacky of those Jews!

But this wasn’t news to me: I learned this in the third grade, along with the other rules of kashrut and shechita. We don’t eat giraffes, of course, not just because they’re endangered, but because according to Jewish law, you need to slice the arteries at a certain point, so that the blood drains most quickly and the animal dies without prolonged suffering. We know where that place is on a cow, but we’re not sure where that would be on a giraffe. So giraffes are off the menu – but they’re on the approved list.

To me, this story exemplifies much of Jewish law and modern Judaism. With a few basic axioms – just like Euclid’s – you can build a logical framework that supports any question you might have. Accept that G-d exists, and that He gave the Torah to us, and then hundreds of logical implications follow. This is the logical Judaism, the way we make sense of four thousand years of heritage and dense books and missing links. And it does make sense, one law leading to another, one interpretation and one rabbi at a time.

One of the main sources of the interpretation is the Midrash, a collection of interpretations, stories, and parables that explain the text of the Torah.

The Midrash is what happens in the white spaces between the letters on the scroll, passed down through the generations. Often times, it can be relatively prosaic, clarifying the fine points of the law: this is what most people think of, when they think of commentaries.

But there is another type of Midrash in Judaism, where the supernatural is present everywhere and in everything. In a world where miracles happen on a daily basis, how could there not be? And of course there are demons and witches and evil spirits and magical protections.  The ways to deal with these supernatural occurrences follow the same methods as we would to what kind of meat is kosher: follow the midrash, the established world, and it will lead you to the answer.

Women are supposed to wear amulets at childbirth to ward away Lilith, Adam’s first wife and the mother of demons. Adam had a first wife? The Midrash says that Adam had a wife before Eve, because of the differences between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2: Lilith was created equal and didn’t like Adam, and ran off to make demon babies before G-d placed Adam in the Garden of Eden. Adam asked G-d for another, more submissive wife, so G-d created another woman. But this woman wasn’t Eve: Adam saw her being created, and couldn’t love the woman he had seen constructed. So G-d put Adam to sleep, as seen in Genesis 2:21, and made Eve. The second wife exists in the Midrash to explain why Adam was put to sleep.

That’s how Midrash goes: one story leading into another, sometimes contradicting, sometimes with a moral that doesn’t leave you satisfied. So another moral is constructed. This folklore in Judaism is rich and powerful, but is frequently forgotten and explained away as primitive superstition by modern Jewish scholars.

That’s why I was so glad to see two recent works that use this mystical interpretation of Judaism to enhance their world-building. One, Steampunk Torah, takes Midrashic interpretations of the weekly Torah readings and applies them to the author’s own fantasy world, which is inspired by but not a direct analogue of Judaism. The other, The Merkabah Rider, puts a Kabbalistic Hasidic gunslinger in the Old West. Both treat the mystic parts of Judaism with gravity, and give the words great respect: an essential part of Midrash, when you consider every word, every letter, even every stroke of the pen has power.

Steampunk Torah takes an imagined steampunk world and infuses it with lessons from the weekly Torah portions. Mari is a young woman who is seen as an outcast in her home for defying society’s expectations of her, until the Great Archivist Ismael takes her in as an Apprentice to the holy books of knowledge and power.

The author Rivkah Raven uses the Midrash to enrich her story in much the same way that Midrash enriches the original text: she uses it to ground her original world and give weight to the characters’ struggles and interactions. While it starts out very slowly, the writing and the world improve and grow as the chapters go on, and Rivkah uses both her story and the Midrash to as an allegory to illustrate many of the issues facing modern Judaism, such as assimilation and women’s roles.

 By contrast, Edward Erdelac’s The Merkabah Rider series is in a world without Torah at all: it’s a Western with a renegade Jew as its lead. Erdelac treats Kabbalah with the same gravity that other authors treat vampires or werewolves, and populates the world with other people’s folkloric histories as well, including a few nods to popular culture along the way.  Each book so far contains a collection of novellas, all following the (mis)adventures of the Merkabah Rider, a Strider-type who refuses to reveal his own name, because a name has (very real) kabbalistic power. His battles take place in both the physical and the mystical realms.  His adventures aren’t limited to Jewish mythology, either: in the world of the Merkabah Rider, all mythologies are real and valid.

The thing that struck me most about The Merkabah Rider is that the world is gritty and full of anti-Semitism.  This is natural, reflecting the real world in the 1870s and 1880s: rather than a world of harmony, cultures are clashing quite brutally, and no slurs are unimaginable to use. From a story standpoint, it makes sense. As I sit here in the real world, I’m reminded of why throughout history, rabbis and other caretakers of Jewish folklore have carefully de-emphasized and frequently pruned references to the supernatural in our holy texts. They wanted to keep it secret, restricting access to only the learned and settled (and male) scholars, so that nothing could get out that might embarrass us in the eyes of the outside world, no fabrications or exaggerations that so frequently turned into blood libels.

But I don’t agree. I think we should know all there is to know, both about our own culture and others. In this way, we can learn from each other.  Both Steampunk Torah and The Merkabah Rider will give you a taste of Jewish folklore and how it can be used. If it interests you, come play in our sandbox, there’s plenty of room.

After all, we’ve got giraffes.

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Rachel Landau is a graduate student in public policy. She previously worked as a museum security guard. She has lost on Jeopardy!