CALL FOR PAPERS

SPECIAL ISSUE

Steampunk, Science, and (Neo)Victorian Technologies

Neo-Victorian Studies invites papers and/or abstracts for a 2009 special issue on neo-Victorianism’s engagement with science and new/old technologies, especially as articulated through the genre of Steampunk. As a lifestyle, aesthetic and literary movement, Steampunk can be both the act of modding your laptop to look like and function as a Victorian artefact and an act of (re-)imagining a London in which Charles Babbage’s analytical engine was realised. Steampunk includes applications of nineteenth-century aesthetics to contemporary objects; speculative extensions of technologies that actually existed; and the anachronistic importation of contemporary science into fictionalised pasts and projected futures. In all cases, Steampunk blurs boundaries: between centuries, between technologies, and between “those” Victorians and “us” neo-Victorians. This special issue will explore why particular scientific and technological developments are revisited at particular historical moments and trace Steampunk’s importance to neo-Victorianism, as well as its wider cultural implications.

Deadline for the submission of completed papers: 1 June 2009

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

•           Steampunk and the importation/transformation of Victorian aesthetics

•           changing narrative “technologies” in Victorian/neo-Victorian fiction

•           markets and economics of the Steampunk universe

•           science and environmental politics

•           Steampunk and the myths of the Industrial Revolution

•           redefining the human: intersections with cyberpunk

•           Steampunk and old/new/lost world empire(s)

•           the terrors of Steampunk in a post-9/11 world

•           historicising the Steampunk phenomenon

•           gender constructions in Steampunk art, literature, and practice

•           mad geniuses: scientists, inventors, doctors, engineers

•           Steampunk pasts and futures (e.g. The Difference Engine vs. The Diamond Age)

•           modding and maker practices: objects and (neo-)Victorian materialism

•           real and imagined difference engines

•           scientific (im)practicalities of Steampunk contraptions

•           visual Steampunk vs. narrative Steampunk (e.g. graphic novels or movies vs. novels)

•           cosplay and conventions

Articles and/or creative pieces between 6000-8000 words should be submitted by email to the guest editors Rachel A. Bowser (rachel.bowser@gmail.com) and Brian Croxall (b.croxall@gmail.com), with a further copy to the General Editor, Marie-Luise Kohlke (neovictorianstudies@swansea.ac.uk). For submission guidelines, please consult the journal website.

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The call for paper for the special issue on "Swing your razor high...": Sweeny Todd and Other (Neo-)Victorian Criminalities" has now closed. Publication is planned for late 2008/early 2009.

The third issue of Neo-Victorian Studies will be a general issue to be published spring/summer 2009; see general CFP below.

The fourth issue will be a special issue of developed papers from the Adapting the Nineteenth Century: Revisiting, Revising, and Rewriting the Past conference, held at Lampeter University, Wales, UK, 22-24 August 2008. Enquiries and submissions to the guest editors, Jessica Cox (j.cox@lamp.ac.uk) and Alexia Bowler (alexiabowler@yahoo.com), with a copy to the General Editor, Marie-Luise Kohlke (neovictorianstudies@swansea.ac.uk). For submission guidelines, please consult the journal website.

GENERAL CAll FOR PAPERS

The editors of Neo-Victorian Studies invite submissions from established and early career researchers and creative artists for general issues of the journal on any topic related to the exploration of the nineteenth century from a twentieth/twenty-first century perspective. Contributions on the period’s cultural legacies in non-British contexts, e.g. Asian, African, North and South American frameworks, are equally welcome. Submissions are accepted throughout the year. The next general issue will be published late spring/summer 2009. In order to be considered for this issue, submissions should be received no later than 31 January 2009.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
• theorising the neo-Victorian novel
• intertextual / intervisual negotiations with the past
• cultural traumas and practices of commemoration
• refracting or ‘queering’ narratives of nation and empire
• tracing patterns of environmental impact and destruction
• the legacies of nineteenth century sexual politics
• the heritage of Victorian social policy
• rewriting histories of science and medicine
• the biographical imagination
• re-conceptualising children and childhood
• the fascinations of criminality
• spectrality, spiritualism, and the occult
• the space of cultural memory / the sense of place

Submissions may include:
• scholarly theoretical/critical articles of 6000-8000 words (plus bibliography)
• short creative pieces (any genre of creative writing or creative arts)
• polemical pieces
• interviews
• notices of work in progress
• reviews of relevant critical/creative publications in the field
• (for future issues) critical/creative responses to previous contributions

Please direct enquiries and send electronic submissions via email with Word Document attachment to the General Editor, Marie-Luise Kohlke at neovictorianstudies@swansea.ac.uk. Please consult our submission guidelines, prior to submission.