Call for Book Chapters: Reimagining Futures in Steampunk, Cyberpunk, and Solarpunk Narratives

Call for Book Chapters: Reimagining Futures in Steampunk, Cyberpunk, and Solarpunk Narratives

As speculative genres and cultural aesthetics, Steampunk, Cyberpunk, and Solarpunk explore alternative visions of technology, society, and the future. Each of these “punk” imaginaries negotiates the dynamic interplay between progress and resistance, industrialism and ecology, dystopia and utopia. While Steampunk reimagines the industrial past through retrofuturistic aesthetics, Cyberpunk envisions digital dystopias dominated by artificial intelligence, virtual realities, and corporate control. Solarpunk, by contrast, offers an eco-utopian vision that embraces sustainability, collaboration, and technological harmony with the environment. Together, they form a continuum of speculative storytelling that interrogates human identity, ethics, and the imagination of possible futures.

The edited volume welcomes contributions that approach these genres from a Discourse Studies perspective. Steampunk, Cyberpunk, and Solarpunk not only function as narrative and aesthetic modes but also as discursive formations that shape cultural perceptions of technology, nature, progress, and identity. Analyses informed by critical discourse analysis, multimodal discourse studies, or narrative discourse theory are particularly encouraged, especially those exploring how language, imagery, and ideology construct and contest visions of the future within and across these genres.

Publication: Selected papers will be published by Maurer Press in the book series entitled Interdisciplinary Studies on Philology (Frankfurt am Main, Germany).

Book Title: Reimagining Futures in Steampunk, Cyberpunk, and Solarpunk Narratives

Publisher: Maurer Press (Germany)

CPC: The CPC for publication in this volume is 130 Euro per chapter. 

Submitting your paper: Please send your paper proposals (max. 1 DIN-A-Size, Times New Roman 12, 250-300 words) and a 100-word author biography till February 1, 2026 to the editors of the volume listed below:

Assoc. Prof. Irem Atasoy, Istanbul University, Department of German Language and Literature

irem.atasoy@istanbul.edu.tr  

Assoc. Prof. Habib Tekin, Marmara University, Department of German Language and Literature

habib.tekin@marmara.edu.tr