Indian Steampunk: Footnotes

1 The Gatehouse Gazette: a popular dieselpunk and steampunk magazine dedicated its 11th issue to ‘Victorientalism’. The concept was to “safely recreate” (Ottens, 2009) the West’s and more precisely 19th century Western author’s myths about the East. The issue was heavily criticized for its misguided blend of transculturalism.

2 Jeff VanderMeer, “It’s a Clockwork Universe, Victoria: Measuring the Critical Mass of Steampunk.” in The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists and Strange Literature. (New York: Abrams Image, 2011), 9.

3 Ay-Leen, Beyond Victoriana. 7 March 2010. https://beyondvictoriana.com/2010/03/07/beyond-victoriana-17the-semantics-of-words-the-antics-of-fashion-addressing-victorientalism/

4 The entry is tagged under ‘Ay-Leen the Peacemaker’, a character entrusted to knock down misconceptions about the East while engaging faithfully with Steampunk aesthetics.

5 Jeff VanderMeer, “It’s a Clockwork Universe”, 11.

6 John D. Lindberg, “Literature and Politics”, The Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association 22, no. 4 (Dec., 1968), 163.

7 S.J Chambers, “Edgar Allan Poe: Perpetrator of the First Steampunk Hoax?” in The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists and Strange Literature, by S.J Chambers Jeff VanderMeer. (New York: Abrams Image, 2011), 30.

8 Suparno Banerjee, “Introduction” in Indian Science Fiction: Patterns, History and Hybridity. (University of Wales Press, 2010), 6.

9 Ibid. 8 Suparno Banerjee, “Introduction” in Indian Science Fiction: Patterns, History and Hybridity. (University of Wales Press, 2010), 6.

10 During independence India suffered an all-time low with regards to per capita income. “75% of the workforce was in agriculture and the modern factory sector accounted for barely 8% of output and less than 3% of employment” says Arindam Banerjee, Chirashree Dasgupta and Surajit Mazumder in ‘Historiography sans History: A Response to Tirthankar Roy,’ Economic and Political Weekly 50, No. 35 (August 29, 2015), 129.

11 Aditya Mukherjee, “Empire: How Colonial India Made Modern Britain.” Economic and Political Weekly 45, No. 50 (December 11-17, 2010), 76.

12 An anti-industrial endeavour which started in Britain around the 1880s, the Arts and Crafts movement was distinctly socialist in that it led consumers to return to pre-industrial small-scale craftsmanship. The movement vehemently critiqued factory production and hailed the ‘tinkerer’ figure so redolent in steampunk literature as well as DIY.

13 Barry Brummett, “Introduction: A Rhetoric of Steam” in Clockwork Rhetoric: The Language and Style of Steampunk. (University Press of Mississippi, 2014), xix.

14 Stitchpunk looks similar to a ragdoll but is actually about small robotic creatures with a “metal skeleton, protective padding, and a skin of burlap or fabric to hold it all together” (Fandom.com n.d.). The 2009 animated adventure movie ‘9’ is the first of its kind to explore the genre.

15 It is important to remember that cosplayers of the steampunk movement have forever banked on DIY to interpret and create costumes appealing to a certain Victorian historicity.

16 According to Barry Brummett, the tinkerer is a post-industrial icon, a man of Victorian sensibilities and penchant for DIY.

17 VanderMeer, S.J Chambers, “From Forevertron to the Raygun Rocketship and Beyond.” in The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists and Strange Literature. (New York: Abrams Image, 2011), 98.

18 The idea here being that higher income houses would show lower propensity for DIY as the latter sports a certain working class aesthetic.

19 Anjula Gurtoo, Vidosh Sarup & Colin C. Williams, “Explaining the do-it-yourself (DIY) retail market in a developing country: preliminary lessons from India.” The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 2010, 339.

20 Ibid, Anjula Gurtoo, Vidosh Sarup & Colin C. Williams, “Explaining the do-it-yourself (DIY) retail market in a developing country: preliminary lessons from India.” The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 2010, 339. 343.

21 Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities explains this consolidation of nationhood further. Even though most citizens of a nation have never met one another, they are unified by similar interests/opinions in such fields as domestic and foreign policies.

22 M.K Gandhi, translated from Gujarati by Valji Govindji Desai, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule . Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1938, 81.