A lot of research went into developing BORDER CROSSINGS and the fantasy world within it. Below is a listing of most of the resources that informed the themes, world-building and writing of this story. They aren’t listed in any particular order. Sorry if APA style references aren’t to your liking; that’s one academic habit I’ve yet to shake.
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Appadurai (1990) Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. Public Culture, 2 (2). 322-329. The main theory that Appadurai presents in this short article is really the central theme to all of BORDER CROSSINGS. Globalization occurs in “the social imaginary” where borders are crossed over five dimensions: people, media, technology, money and ideas. I see BORDER CROSSINGS as a weird fiction case study that you can apply Appadurai’s model to. He further expands the idea in Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large. University of Minnesota Press, but this one article is really the best place to start (and far easier reading). |
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Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2005). Multitude. Penguin Books. These two rock stars of academia present the second half of the BORDER CROSSINGS equation. This is a sequel to their celebrated book Empire. That book claimed that globalization creates an empire of “network power” that exists between corporations, powerful nations, and supranational institutions like the WTO and the United Nations. Here they take it one step further by arguing that a “multitude” can provide dissent through the same global channels that allow the empire to exist. They hope this group will invent new ways for an open, democratic global society to exist. |
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Mann, C. C. (2006). 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Vintage Books. This is one of the first books that got me thinking about the world building for BORDER CROSSINGS. It describes the Americas’ various cultures back before they were even a “New World” for Europeans. It got me thinking about everything: culture, class, geography, cosmology for each religion, the demographics and economics of trade. Most importantly, it reminded me about disease and how transformative that could be to human cultures. This book, the D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide and Edward T. Hall and Geert Hofstede’s cultural taxonomy’s served as great resources for thinking about alien cultures and how to define them. I don’t agree with their ideas about essentialism and culture, but imaginary purposes their theories are great. |
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Wiebe, R. H. (1967). The search for order, 1877-1920. Hill and Wang. Wiebe’s book thoroughly covers a time in American history when everything was up for grabs: business, geography, technology, industry and even imagination. The descriptions in here of people grasping with change—even if they didn’t realize it was coming—are deeply influential in how I think about the way the peoples of BORDER CROSSINGS adapt to their circumstances. |
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Terricloth, J. (2007). The Collected Cloth (bakshish: cloth, dam, sorrow and trouble). These two “chapbooks” by the front man for the World/Inferno Friendship Society were great research for developing the character M.P. Skulker. Jack Terricloth’s swagger, anarchism and panache were crucial in understanding how this fantastic pirate smuggler could convince so many to follow his lead. |
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Klein, N. (2002). No space, no choice, no jobs, no logo. Picador. This is another crucial resource about globalization and the role of transnational corporations within it. In particular I looked to Klein’s sections on “free trade zones” to help develop what the last island is like. |
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Anderson, B. (1999). Imagined communities. Verso. This is a crucial text when thinking about nations, especially as imaginary, social constructions. I also looked to Anderson when thinking about how The Rhizome understands itself as a nation of displaced beings. |
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Kellner, D. (2003) Buffy the Vampire Slayer as spectacular Allegory: a diagnostic critique. (PDF) This is a smart article about the Buffy TV show and how it represents gender, class and ethnicity. I turned to this when I was originally developing Venetia Toco as a primary character for the series. |
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Editors. (2006) What then is steampunk? Colonizing the past so we can dream the future. SteamPunk Magazine. “Steampunk” is a fairly slippery term to define, so who better to turn to for a concise definition than the authors of the spectacularly produced D.I.Y. magazine about the very genre? |
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Moore, A., & Burrows, J. (2003). Alan Moore’s Writing For Comics Volume 1. Avatar Press. |
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Blaylock, J. (2006). How To Self Publish Comics: Not Just Create Them (1st ed.). Devil’s Due Publishing. |
