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1002. Dr. Mike Perschon

a.k.a Steampunk Scholar

Dr. Mike Perschon began studying steampunk for his Ph.D. dissertation in the fall of 2008. That October, he attended Steam Powered, the Northern California Steampunk convention. In addition to sharing panels with Hugo-award winning fanzine editor Christopher J. Garcia, authors J. Daniel Sawyer, and the yet-unknown Gail Carriger, presented content that would become his first published article on steampunk: "Finding Nemo: Verne's Antihero as Original Steampunk."

That Christmas, while working on "Steam Wars," a term paper that would become yet another published article on steampunk Star Wars images, Perschon wrote his first post for Steampunk Scholar, a blog that would chart his research progress. The following year he presented his Nemo paper at the Eaton Science Fiction Conference at the University of Riverside, where it was shortlisted for Verniana, the journal of the North American Jules Verne Society. In the years that followed, Perschon participated as a moderator for The Great Steampunk Debate, attended Steamcon three years in a row, The Nova Albion Steampunk Festival, and The Canadian National Steampunk Festival, where he continued to present and refine his research. Perschon presents annually at the Edmonton Pure Spec festival. Perschon has published numerous articles on steampunk in fanzines, websites, and magazines, including Exhibition Hall, Tor.com, On-Spec, and Locus. He has been featured in many interviews, from small personal blogs to USA Today.

In the fall of 2012, Perschon defended his Ph.D. dissertation titled The Steampunk Aesthetic: Technofantasies in a Neo-Victorian Retrofuture. That fall, Steaming into a Victorian Future, the first English academic anthology on steampunk was released, which contained Perschon's 'Useful Troublemakers: Social Retrofuturism in the Novels of Gail Carriger and Cherie Priest." With the release of that anthology, Perschon realized the goal he'd set when he began studying steampunk: to be at the forefront of steampunk studies in North America.

Perschon currently resides in Edmonton, Alberta, in the Great White North of Canada, where he works as a full time instructor of English at Grant MacEwan University.

External Links
Interview - Airship Ambassador
Interview - Adrienne Kress
Interview - Judith Graves
Interview - Decimononic
Dissertation - The Steampunk Aesthetic: Technofantasies in a Neo-Victorian Retrofuture
Interview - Swecon 2014


See Also
1008. Steampunk Scholar
1011. Steamcon


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Blogger, Author