Clockwork Rhetoric: The Language and Style of Steampunk ed. by Barry Brummett (review)

Steampunk, a style built around a nostalgic view of the Victorian Era and the Age of Steam, has grown in popularity in the past few decades. In Clockwork Rhetoric: The Language and Style of Steampunk, editor Barry Brummett and contributors explore the rhetoric and style of steampunk culture as it is presented in film, television, music, conventions, and other venues. The collection begins with an editor's introduction by Brummett and then an introduction to the concept of steampunk by David Beard, followed by 11 essays divided into three parts and covering a range of topics from aesthetics to feminism to contested memories. The main goal of the collection is to explore the ways in which the images and style of steampunk cohere into a symbolic economy, thereby exploring what the social and political effects of that economy and aesthetic have on the steampunk culture.

The editor's introduction gives a brief overview and definition of steampunk culture as well as provides the primary research question guiding the collection. Brummett asks, "When these images and themes of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are used today aesthetically, what social and political messages are urged upon audiences, readers, and participants of that aesthetic?" (x). This question allows the contributors to address issues of race, class, colonialism and imperialism, and gender throughout the collection.

In Beard's introduction to the collection, "A Rhetoric of Steam," he presents a theoretical background and a conceptual map of steampunk culture. Discussing the "rhetoric of steampunk," he explains that he and the other contributors are exploring "the core set of ideas, values, and beliefs that are formulated and communicated through steampunk literature, film, art, costume, and design" (xv). Beard presents the historical roots of steam-punk before providing an overview and examination of the media consumption of the culture. Finally, he looks at steampunk's participatory culture and steampunk as a rhetorical system.

Part 1, "A Rhetoric of Steampunk Ideology," features three chapters that examine the ideologies of the aesthetic of steampunk. Chapter 1, by Mirko M. Hall and Joshua Gunn, examines the "technician-hero" (3) in steam-punk texts and the ways they exemplify the traditional Victorian gentleman within the technological utopian world of steampunk. Kristin Stimpson, in chapter 2, explores the material and visual cultures of steampunk and how they function as an "aesthetic of empire" (20). Through her discussion of empire, Stimpson elaborates on some of the more problematic issues of steampunk, such as race and class, and the glorification of Victorian colonialism. Finally, in chapter 3, Mary Anne Taylor discusses the question of feminism in steampunk, specifically from the perspective of the corset and women's clothing choices within steampunk culture and whether the choice to wear a corset is proof enough of gender equality.

In part 2, "A Rhetoric of Steampunk Semiotics," three chapters discuss how steampunk takes various elements from their original Victorian era context and either reproduces or renegotiates them within the new steampunk context. Chapter 4, by Elizabeth Birmingham, looks specifically at Japanese anime steampunk and how it critiques both "contemporary technologies and consumer culture" (61). Brummett, in chapter 5, discusses the effect scale has on steampunk and the power that scale can create in the steampunk world. He explains, "to jump scale can be a way to challenge the social, physical, and geographic arrangements made by people and institutions in power. … [It] is a way to claim a different identity and a different social organization from that which hegemonic power has assigned" (81). Chapter 6, by Jaime Wright, examines Steampunk's approach to the text of Sherlock Holmes and how contemporary versions of the stories exhibit "rhetorical indicators of Baudrillard's post-Marxist object system" (95).

Finally, part 3, "A Rhetoric of Steampunk Narrative," features four chapters that explore specific narrative texts that revolve around steampunk and the rhetorical effects steampunk has on the narrative of those texts. Chapter 7, by...