Monthly Archive: April, 2016

April 30, 2016

Speculating Canada on Trent Radio Episode 62: Afrofuturism

In this episode of Speculating Canada on Trent Radio, I explore Afrofuturism and particularly focus my examination on the work of Canadian author Nalo Hopkinson. Even though I am not a black person myself, I felt that it was important to examine Afrofuturism as an important contribution to imagining black futurity and to science fiction in general. In this episode...

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April 28, 2016

Signing the Electric

Signing the Electric A review of Terri Favro’s “Let Slip the Sluicegates of War, Hydro-Girl” in Clockwork Canada: Steampunk Fiction edited by Dominik Parisien (Exile Editions, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille In “Let Slip the Sluicegates of War, Hydro-Girl”, Terri Favro creates a technologically advanced steampunk Canada in the midst of the war of 1812, using the hydro-electric dam at Niagara...

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April 26, 2016

Disability and Immigration

Disability and ImmigrationA review of “Crew 255” by Claire Humphrey in Clockwork Canada: Steampunk Fiction, edited by Dominik Parisien (Exile Editions, 2016). By Derek Newman-Stille In “Crew 255”, Claire Humphrey uses steampunk to comment on the interrelationship between immigration, disability, and ethnicity. After an explosion of an airship in Toronto, people are brought into the city from other countries to...

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April 24, 2016

Working in the Industrial Revolution

Working in the Industrial RevolutionA review of Brent Nichols’ “The Harpoonist” in Clockwork Canada: Steampunk Fiction edited by Dominik Parisien (Exile Editions, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille Despite the disabling effects of the Industrial Revolution and the number of limbs lost in the desire to mechanise, most steampunk doesn’t examine the relationship of disability to the technological gadgetry that is employed...

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April 22, 2016

Hawkeye’s Deafness

Hawkeye’s Deafness A review of Jeff Lemire and Ramon Perez’ “Hawkeye #5: All New Hawkeye” (Marvel Comics, 2015). By Derek Newman-Stille    As a disability scholar and a fan of Jeff Lemire’s work, I was extremely excited to discover that Lemire had taken on the writing of the Hawkeye comics. Hawkeye has been recently reinvented as a deaf character (I...

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April 21, 2016

Steampunk Multiculturalism

Steampunk MulticulturalismA review of Holly Schofield’s “The East Wing in Carall Street” in Clockwork Canada; Steampunk Fiction Edited by Dominik Parisien (Exile Editions, 2016).    Canada’s late 1800s were an era of exploitation of Chinese-Canadian workers. With head-taxes on immigrants from China and the exploitation of Chinese labourers for widescale production, Canadian interactions with their Chinese-originating populations in the 1800s...

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April 20, 2016

Of Maps andMonsters

Of Maps and Monsters A review of Charlotte Ashley’s “La Clochemar” in Clockwork Canada: Steampunk Fiction, edited by Dominik Parisien (Exile Editions, 2016). By Derek Newman-Stille    In “La Clochemar”, Charlotte Ashley brings readers a tale of a North America filled with giant beings called the Mandimanidoo, a name that plays with the Anishinabee word for spirits “manitou”, which are...

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April 15, 2016

Fairy Tales Estranged

Fairy Tales Estranged A review of Sandra Kasturi’s “The Animal Bridegroom” (Tightrope Books). By Derek Newman-Stille    “The Animal Bridegroom” leaves a breadcrumb trail of poems to bring the reader through cultural myths and legends to a place of self-reflection. Sandra Kasturi uses fairy tale themes to open a pathway into the deep woods of myth, where she explores the changeable...

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April 13, 2016

Delightfully Disturbing.

Delightfully Disturbing A Review of “She Walks in Shadows” Edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles (Innsmouth Free Press, 2015). By Derek Newman-Stille    “She Walks in Shadows” opens up a space of question and critique of Lovecraftian fiction, subversively playing with the tales of H.P. Lovecraft to create a shadow text to his work. The women who wrote...

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April 12, 2016

Quote – People and Land Belonging to Each Other

“The innumerable spirits of creation – from the leaf-headed standing people and the lichen-spotted stone people, to the furred four-leggeds and the feathered ones who danced on wind and breeze – were woven together in this world, and they belonged to the land as much as the land belonged to them.” -Daniel Heath Justice – Kynship: The Way of Thorn...

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