Subcultures: The Basics


Book Description

Subcultures: The Basics is an accessible and engaging introduction to subcultures in a global context. This fully revised new edition adds new case studies and an additional chapter on the digital lives of subculturists as well as reflections on the relationships between subcultures and globalisation and the resurgence of the far-right. Blending theory and practice, this text examines a varied range of subcultures including hip hop, graffiti writing, heavy metal, punk, gamers, burlesque, parkour, riot grrrl, straight edge, roller derby, steampunk, b-boying/b-girling, body modification, and skateboarding. Subcultures: The Basics answers the key questions posed by those new to the subject, including: What is a subculture? What are the significant theories of subculture? How do subcultures emerge, who participates and why? How do subcultural identities interact with other aspects of self, such as social class, race, gender, and sexual identity? What is the relationship between deviance, resistance and the ‘mainstream’? How have both progressive and reactionary subculturists contributed to social change? How does society react to different subcultures? How have subcultures spread around the world? In what ways do digital technologies and social media influence subcultures? What happens when subculturists age? Tracing the history and development of subcultural theory to the present day, this text is essential reading for all those studying subcultures in the contexts of sociology, cultural studies, history, media studies, anthropology, musicology, and criminology. It pushes the field forward with cutting-edge theories of resistance and social change, place and space, critical race and queer studies, virtual participation, and ageing and participation across the life course. Key terms and concepts are highlighted throughout the text whilst each chapter includes boxed case studies and signposts students to further reading and resources.




The Steampunk Handbook


Book Description

Author and lecturer Phoebe Darqueling has compiled and updated her best articles from The Steampunk Journal and beyond to surprise, inform, and delight Steampunk and Gaslamp Fantasy fans old and new. Find out more about the history of the genre, the cultural underpinnings that inspire it, and recommendations for books, television, and movies.




Politics in the Gutters


Book Description

From the moment Captain America punched Hitler in the jaw, comic books have always been political, and whether it is Marvel’s chairman Ike Perlmutter making a campaign contribution to Donald Trump in 2016 or Marvel’s character Howard the Duck running for president during America’s bicentennial in 1976, the politics of comics have overlapped with the politics of campaigns and governance. Pop culture opens avenues for people to declare their participation in a collective project and helps them to shape their understandings of civic responsibility, leadership, communal history, and present concerns. Politics in the Gutters: American Politicians and Elections in Comic Book Media opens with an examination of campaign comic books used by the likes of Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman, follows the rise of political counterculture comix of the 1960s, and continues on to the graphic novel version of the 9/11 Report and the cottage industry of Sarah Palin comics. It ends with a consideration of comparisons to Donald Trump as a supervillain and a look at comics connections to the pandemic and protests that marked the 2020 election year. More than just escapist entertainment, comics offer a popular yet complicated vision of the American political tableau. Politics in the Gutters considers the political myths, moments, and mimeses, in comic books—from nonfiction to science fiction, superhero to supernatural, serious to satirical, golden age to present day—to consider how they represent, re-present, underpin, and/or undermine ideas and ideals about American electoral politics.




The Most Powerful Idea in the World


Book Description

"The Most Powerful Idea in the World argues that the very notion of intellectual property drove not only the invention of the steam engine but also the entire Industrial Revolution." -- Back cover.




Dark Iron King I


Book Description

Other than a delicious root beer float and access to proper pizza, all Garth ‘Nickels’ N’Chalez wants is to see the creation of reality 2.0 happen. He already knows it's going to be bloody, rough and extremely trying, but when you sign up to be the Engineer of that new birth, you have very few choices regarding how it goes down. And when you've got the ancient, venerable and godlike Kith Antal leading an army of unstoppable Harmony soldiers coming at you with the express purposes of being the Victor.... You just can't help but feel it's gonna be even worse. But before Garth can even think about dealing with dear old dad, he's got to get inside Arcade City and deal with the so-called mad Goth king Blake. No one really knows what's under the gigantic clockwork dome that's lasted for thirty thousand years and Garth -not for a lack of trying to get proper Intel- finds himself doing what he does best. Which is basically charging in without thinking to see what happens next; forced to kill an innocent man in order to be sentenced to Arcade City for crimes against a King’s Son, Garth’s only information concerning the Domed, ancient city is that it is thirty thousand years old and filled to the brim with madness and chaos. The moment our hero steps through the Geared Doors leading into the fabled and storied Arcade City, Garth finds himself in –as usual- so far in over his head that his only choice is to push forward, ever forward. Inflicted with a terrible case of nanotech derived-Kingsblood poisoning, assaulted by fear, hunted by Gearmen, surrounded by hideously mutated gearheads and wardogs, saddled with an itinerant –and crankier than thou- blacksmith named Barnabas and balked at every turn, Garth begins the trek to Arcadia, wherein the Dark Iron King waits. Along the way, he and his reluctant companion seek to find a cure for Garth’s maladies, all while skirting dark resurgences of that thing the Engineer fears more than anything: Specter. Outside The Dome, the war for Trinity and It’s Armies does not go well; led by SpecSer Commander Aleksander Politoyov, his forces cannot get through the systemic shield created by Huey, and so he turns his attentions outwards. Employing the resourceful –and uncannily insightful- Tendreel Salingh to discover Garth N’Chalez’ true plans, Aleksander unwittingly sets into motion a series of events that will spiral wildly out of control. Herrig, now Chairman of the renamed Latelyspace Commonwealth, is assaulted on all sides. When Garth escaped the confines of Hospitalis aboard Bravo, the shield protecting Latelyspace from invasion dropped just long enough for him to escape, but also for a handful of Trinity’s forces to sneak in. His system is plagued by Heavy Elites, Specter Techs, and regular Army, and the original Horsemen are chomping at the bit to rain wrack and ruin upon everyone and everything that stands in their way. All this and more awaits. The Unreal Universe gears up for the end and everything is quite literally going to Hell in a hand basket. Will Garth survive Arcade City? Against the mighty Dark Iron King and his even mightier King’s Will … well. Garth will need to bring his ‘A’ Game… Won’t he just?




The Cabinet of Wonders


Book Description

Marie Rutkoski's startling debut novel, the first book in the Kronos Chronicles, about the risks we take to protect those we love, brims with magic, political intrigue, and heroism. Petra Kronos has a simple, happy life. But it's never been ordinary. She has a pet tin spider named Astrophil who likes to hide in her snarled hair and give her advice. Her best friend can trap lightning inside a glass sphere. Petra also has a father in faraway Prague who is able to move metal with his mind. He has been commissioned by the prince of Bohemia to build the world's finest astronomical clock. Petra's life is forever changed when, one day, her father returns home – blind. The prince has stolen his eyes, enchanted them, and now wears them. But why? Petra doesn't know, but she knows this: she will go to Prague, sneak into Salamander Castle, and steal her father's eyes back. Joining forces with Neel, whose fingers extend into invisible ghosts that pick locks and pockets, Petra finds that many people in the castle are not what they seem, and that her father's clock has powers capable of destroying their world. The Cabinet of Wonders is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.




Pathfinder Adventure Path: Punks in a Powder Keg (Outlaws of Alkenstar 1 Of 3) (P2)


Book Description

A ragtag band of gunslinging outlaws get their hands dirty in the greasy alleyways and whisky-soaked saloons of Alkenstar, the City of Smog. To get revenge on the mogul who destroyed them, the renegades will have to stick up an illicit bank, foil a crooked shieldmarshal, and escort a reclusive inventor to safety. All the while, countless rough-and-tumble rivals aim to waylay the party and seize the inventor's latest concoction: pyronite, an explosive substance with the potential to change the face of the world. In a city where the clockwork guards are literally as tough as brass, the antiheroes will need true grit to dole out overdue justice. "Punks in a Powderkeg" is a Pathfinder adventure for four 1st-level characters. This adventure begins the Outlaws of Alkenstar Adventure Path, a three-part monthly campaign in which a band of outlaws unravel an explosive criminal plot in the heart of the City of Smog, Alkenstar. This adventure also includes a gazetteer of the characters' home saloon; new feats, items, and rules options perfect for gunslingers, gearheads, and grenadiers; and new steampunk creatures and mutant monsters to befriend or bedevil your players. Each monthly full-color softcover Pathfinder Adventure Path volume contains an in-depth adventure scenario, stats for several new monsters, and support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign. Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes use the Open Game License and work with both the Pathfinder RPG and the world's oldest fantasy RPG.




Pure Steam Campaign Setting 5e


Book Description

In the age of steam, coal is king, and so Appalachia is the center of the economy. Pure Steam is a steampunk campaign setting for 5e including races, classes, equipment, monsters, maps and more!




Neo-Victorianism and Medievalism


Book Description

Bringing together neo-Victorian and medievalism scholars in dialogue with each other for the first time, this collection of essays foregrounds issues common to both fields. The Victorians reimagined the medieval era and post-Victorian medievalism repurposes received nineteenth century tropes, as do neo-Victorian texts. For example, aesthetic movements such as Arts and Crafts, which looked for inspiration in the medieval era, are echoed by steampunk in its return to Victorian dress and technology. Issues of gender identity, sexuality, imperialism and nostalgia arise in both neo-Victorianism and medievalism, and analysis of such texts is enriched and expanded by the interconnections between the two fields represented in this groundbreaking collection.




The Once and Future Witches


Book Description

"A gorgeous and thrilling paean to the ferocious power of women. The characters live, bleed, and roar. "―Laini Taylor, New York Times bestselling author A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Fantasy Novel • Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR Books • Barnes and Noble • BookPage In the late 1800s, three sisters use witchcraft to change the course of history in this powerful novel of magic, family, and the suffragette movement. In 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box. But when the Eastwood sisters―James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna―join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch's movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote―and perhaps not even to live―the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive. There's no such thing as witches. But there will be. An homage to the indomitable power and persistence of women, The Once and Future Witches reimagines stories of revolution, motherhood, and women's suffrage—the lost ways are calling. Praise for The Once and Future Witches: "A glorious escape into a world where witchcraft has dwindled to a memory of women's magic, and three wild, sundered sisters hold the key to bring it back...A tale that will sweep you away."―Yangsze Choo, New York Times bestselling author "This book is an amazing bit of spellcraft and resistance so needed in our times, and a reminder that secret words and ways can never be truly and properly lost, as long as there are tongues to speak them and ears to listen."―P. Djèlí Clark, author The Black God's Drum For more from Alix E. Harrow, check out The Ten Thousand Doors of January.