Steampunk debate

[sqbr]

Confidential note to strangedave, since you were also wishing for more discussion of such things: steampunkdebate, a community for discussing steampunk including class/race/gender etc issues.

EDIT: Oh, and apparently the reason it was created was because a post on steamfashion poking at the subtext of steampunk was unexpectedly deleted. And then they deleted the first post promoting the new comm as a place to continue the conversation for not being sufficiently fashion related :/

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

That would be cool!

I've recently been reading a very little about the history of Chinese Australians in the 19th century(*) and it's this whole thing that never gets talked about, really challenges my mental images of the past. And that sort of expectation plays into steampunk a lot too.

(*)Pre 1788 Asian Australian history being a totally different ballgame!

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

Ditto. I saw a local history about Toowong, a suburb I knew had an Asian connection because it's near the university and popular with Asian students. But it had a significant chinese community in the 1800s. And that does not get talked about much.

[alias_sqbr]

I think the fact that there were any chinese australians pre 1975ish is pretty much never talked about, with the odd exception of the goldrush.

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

I found the book, and it turns out that most of the photos are actually from the 1930s and on. Bah! I think there are more gold-rush era photos in some of their other books, but I don't have any others. I should try and track some more down.

[alias_sqbr]

the 1930s would be interesting too, if less steampunky.

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

From a local history perspective it's absolutely fascinating. And yeah, it's awesome to think about what could be done with history that doesn't get talked about and Steampunk--using the genre to subvert the conventions of the Victorian era theme.