Back in college, I thought I was such a punk. I had the pink hair and the nose ring, I wore a leather jacket with studs on it, and I thought I was bad ass. I spray-painted an anarchy symbol on the old Dodge Econoline Van I inherited from my parents not because I had any interest in smashing the State but because I thought it looked rad. The most subversive activity I ever participated in was driving that selfsame Econoline Van through the breezeway at the University of Oregon Student Union—not out of a spirit of protest but just for kicks and giggles. In short, my political consciousness was close to nil, I was more likely to blast polka music than the Ramones out of the Dodge’s 8-track tape player, and (the ultimate kiss of death) … while all this was going on, my parents were paying my way through college. Honestly, I couldn’t have been less of a punk if I’d been that dude in Repo Man who aspires to be a fry cook.

What got me to thinking about my shameful past as a poseur is the whole “-punk” proliferation. I myself have added to it with my own “Bustlepunk” silliness, but we also have more established -punks like Clockpunk, Dieselpunk, Steampunk, Atomicpunk, and Spypunk.  (The newest punk I’ve come across is Decopunk. I mean really, they just breed like rabbits.) Like the proliferation of “-gates” to describe a political scandal, the suffix “-punk” has come to mean very little.

I think any text that makes any claim to be “-punk” has to include some kind of meaningful critique of current political and/or social structures. The critique can be metaphorical, of course, directed at a fantasy or historical analogue of those structures, but if it’s not there—if it’s all just surface style—then it doesn’t deserve to be called “-punk” anymore than I did back when I was in college. The funny thing is that today—as an old lady with mostly-regularly colored hair who wears soccer-mom getups and frets about whether the family dog is truly happy—I’m more of a “-punk” than when I was running around in studs and leather. At least these days I have something resembling a political consciousness, and a deeper understanding of the forces of history that have gotten us to where we are today. And sometimes I even agitate in the hope of effecting change—no Molotov cocktails required.

Similarly, whenever I read something that is billed as “-punk,” I try to determine it really deserves the description, or if it’s just the status quo in a purple mohawk. As an English major in college,  we used to call this “interrogating the text.” (Oh, academia.) Let us, for an example, “interrogate” the seminal steampunk text “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne. Does it deserve to be called “-punk?” Well, it does indeed have a boldly subversive element—Captain Nemo is revealed as the descendant of a Muslim sultan who resisted British colonial rule. His political affiliations has cost him the lives of his close family and his ability to live on land. He is an enemy of the most powerful State in existence at the time of the book’s publication—the British Empire. In short, he is a terrorist. A meta-analysis of the text reveals the whitewashing of Nemo’s character in most subsequent film and graphic adaptations (indicating that the element being whitewashed was threatening enough to be suppressed). Taken together, I’d say that’s more than enough to earn this book it’s -punk credentials. Someone get it a pair of Doc Martens!

As someone who values intellectual rigor (but does not always practice it) I think this is a very interesting exercise to conduct. So what do you think? Which “-punk” books have you read that truly live up to their subversive billing? And which do not? Remember, this isn’t a game of “if a book is labeled steampunk and there’s no -punk in it, then it’s a bad book.” That’s not my point. My point is that engaging one’s brain, and actively looking for political subtexts (or the absence of them) is a valuable critical skill that is beneficial to develop.