1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910154866303321

Autore

Whitson Roger (Roger Todd)

Titolo

Steampunk and nineteenth-century digital humanities : literary retrofuturisms, media archaeologies, alternate histories / / Roger Whitson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York : , : Routledge, , 2017

ISBN

9781317509103

1317509102

9781315717142

131571714X

9781317509110

1317509110

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (244 pages) : illustrations

Collana

Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature ; ; 73

Disciplina

001.30285

809.3876809

Soggetti

Digital humanities

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

1. Difference Engines -- 2. Multicultural techniques -- 3. Anthropogenic computing -- 4. Dialectical engines -- 5. Queer publics.

Sommario/riassunto

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's  The Difference Engine and Ken Liu's The Grace of Kings collide with nineteenth-century technological histories like Charles Babbage's use of the difference engine to enhance worker productivity and Isabella Bird's spirit photography of alternate history China.   Along the way, Steampunk and Nineteenth-Century Digital Humanities considers 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. Steampunk 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. Excavating the entangled, anachronistic layers of steampunk practice from video games like Bioshock Infinite to marine trash floating off the shore of Los Angeles and repurposed by media artist Claudio Garz n into steampunk submarines, Steampunk and Nineteenth-Century Digital Humanities uncovers the various technological temporalities and multicultural retrofutures illuminating many alternate histories of the digital humanities.