Review: Claire Nally's Steampunk: Gender, Subculture and the Neo-Victorian. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.

Abstract

In a world where ‘Victorian Values’ serve as an established trope to be satirised, but are also becoming frighteningly central to conservative political logics once more, Claire Nally’s Steampunk: Gender, Subculture & the Neo-Victorian offers a timely and welcome reflection on the possibilities and limitations of the mode. Nally imposes some much-needed structure onto this ‘ambivalent and contradictory discourse’ (107), problematising the idea of steampunk media and culture as ‘revolutionary’ while still highlighting the cultural importance of steampunk as both story and spectacle.

Keywords

• performance
• literature
• popular culture
• subculture
• irony
• victorian values