Energy Humanities Reading Group

The aim of this research group is to study and discuss critical scholarship in the growing field of energy humanities.

Pixnio electricityUniting scholars from different departments at HUM (and beyond), we hope to pursue new interdisciplinary types of cultural inquiry that will help us understand both the roots of our ecological crises and the cultural barriers currently blocking transitioning into more sustainable ways of life. 

In recent years, an increasing number of scholars from a variety of disciplines within the humanities have shown and interest in the cultural attachments to energy sources driving climate change. Beginning with an interest in the hidden, yet omnipresent energy form that is oil, the field has expanded to include other fossil fuels such as coal and gas, and more recently also low carbon emitting energy technologies such as wind and solar.

In the reading group, we are currently diving into the founding texts of this emerging field. These include key interventions by Patricia Yaeger, who coined the concept of ‘The Energy Unconscious’ to study how energy infrastructure have exerted themselves into the social and cultural fabric of modern societies in ways that often seem to evade our critical attention. Other texts include Cara Daggett’s work on ‘petromasculinity’, which highlights how the energy transition threatens not only practical ways of life, but also gendered identities and self-perceptions. And others still include White Skin, Black Fuel (2021) autored by Andreas Malm and The Zetkin Collective, which explores how the fossil-fuelled technologies (cars, aeroplanes and the internal combustion engine) were adored by the classical fascists and spread across the world through the imperial hegemony during the 20th century.

Coordinating researchers

If you want to join in and discuss interventions in this emerging field, feel free to contact us.