Re-assembling the Victorians: Steampunk, Cyborgs, and the Ethics of Industry

If Victorian discourse established a binary opposition between the organic and the mechanic in order to negotiate human identity in the rapidly transforming age of Industrialisation, steampunk re-envisions and re-assembles this binary in order to challenge its validity in the digital age. As a popul...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Helena Esser
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée 2018-06-01
Series:Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/cve/3480
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1832581236805074944
author Helena Esser
author_facet Helena Esser
author_sort Helena Esser
collection DOAJ
description If Victorian discourse established a binary opposition between the organic and the mechanic in order to negotiate human identity in the rapidly transforming age of Industrialisation, steampunk re-envisions and re-assembles this binary in order to challenge its validity in the digital age. As a popular aesthetic that re-envisions the nineteenth century through the lenses of Neo-Victorianism, technofantasy and retrofuturism, steampunk may be applied to various media. It has generated an active subculture whose participants utilise a perceived Victorian technophilia to fuel their own anachronistic explorations. Its counter-cultural core philosophy is built around a yearning for re-humanised technology that promises accessibility, vulnerability and individuation, following the credo ‘Love the machine, hate the factory’.1 While its machines, hailed as ‘real, breathing, coughing, struggling and rumbling parts of the world’,2 become humanised, humans may in turn become mechanised or fused with technology as steam-cyborgs. Whether these encode ethical trespass or promise to remedy physical trauma, the ambiguous figure of the steam-cyborg may employ Victorian hopes and anxieties in order to reflect back our own concerns about human identity in the age of digital technology and fabricate more flexible alternatives. In my paper, I offer an analysis of the steampunk cyborg in literature, film and cosplay as a cultural metaphor, using post-human theory and steampunk’s own manifestos in order to examine how the cyborg re-negotiates industry, identity and agency via the neo-Victorian design aesthetic.
format Article
id doaj-art-6b700f931d674a48858118b50375319c
institution Kabale University
issn 0220-5610
2271-6149
language English
publishDate 2018-06-01
publisher Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
record_format Article
series Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
spelling doaj-art-6b700f931d674a48858118b50375319c2025-01-30T10:22:32ZengPresses Universitaires de la MéditerranéeCahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens0220-56102271-61492018-06-018710.4000/cve.3480Re-assembling the Victorians: Steampunk, Cyborgs, and the Ethics of IndustryHelena EsserIf Victorian discourse established a binary opposition between the organic and the mechanic in order to negotiate human identity in the rapidly transforming age of Industrialisation, steampunk re-envisions and re-assembles this binary in order to challenge its validity in the digital age. As a popular aesthetic that re-envisions the nineteenth century through the lenses of Neo-Victorianism, technofantasy and retrofuturism, steampunk may be applied to various media. It has generated an active subculture whose participants utilise a perceived Victorian technophilia to fuel their own anachronistic explorations. Its counter-cultural core philosophy is built around a yearning for re-humanised technology that promises accessibility, vulnerability and individuation, following the credo ‘Love the machine, hate the factory’.1 While its machines, hailed as ‘real, breathing, coughing, struggling and rumbling parts of the world’,2 become humanised, humans may in turn become mechanised or fused with technology as steam-cyborgs. Whether these encode ethical trespass or promise to remedy physical trauma, the ambiguous figure of the steam-cyborg may employ Victorian hopes and anxieties in order to reflect back our own concerns about human identity in the age of digital technology and fabricate more flexible alternatives. In my paper, I offer an analysis of the steampunk cyborg in literature, film and cosplay as a cultural metaphor, using post-human theory and steampunk’s own manifestos in order to examine how the cyborg re-negotiates industry, identity and agency via the neo-Victorian design aesthetic.https://journals.openedition.org/cve/3480neo-Victorianismsteampunkcyborgtechnophiliaretrofuturismmachines
spellingShingle Helena Esser
Re-assembling the Victorians: Steampunk, Cyborgs, and the Ethics of Industry
Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
neo-Victorianism
steampunk
cyborg
technophilia
retrofuturism
machines
title Re-assembling the Victorians: Steampunk, Cyborgs, and the Ethics of Industry
title_full Re-assembling the Victorians: Steampunk, Cyborgs, and the Ethics of Industry
title_fullStr Re-assembling the Victorians: Steampunk, Cyborgs, and the Ethics of Industry
title_full_unstemmed Re-assembling the Victorians: Steampunk, Cyborgs, and the Ethics of Industry
title_short Re-assembling the Victorians: Steampunk, Cyborgs, and the Ethics of Industry
title_sort re assembling the victorians steampunk cyborgs and the ethics of industry
topic neo-Victorianism
steampunk
cyborg
technophilia
retrofuturism
machines
url https://journals.openedition.org/cve/3480
work_keys_str_mv AT helenaesser reassemblingthevictorianssteampunkcyborgsandtheethicsofindustry