Life in Plastic: Petrochemical Fantasies and Synthetic Sensibilities (Part 1)

Plastics have been a defining feature of contemporary life since at least the 1960s. Yet our proliferating use of plastics has also triggered catastrophic environmental consequences. Plastics are derived from petrochemicals and enmeshed with the global oil economy, and they permeate our consumer goods and their packaging, our clothing and buildings, our bodies and minds. In this first episode of a two-part series, contributors to the volume LIFE IN PLASTIC: ARTISTIC RESPONSES TO PETROMODERNITY discuss plasticity and myth, stretchy superheroes, how plastic became gendered, plastic as a colonizing force, plastic in art and everyday life, and more. Featuring Caren Irr, Lisa Swanstrom, Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor, and Daniel Worden.

Caren Irr is a professor of English at Brandeis University and author of Toward the Geopolitical Novel, Pink Pirates, and The Suburb of Dissent.

Lisa Swanstrom is an associate professor of English at the University of Utah, coeditor of Science Fiction Studies, and author of Animal, Vegetable, Digital.

Jennifer A. Wagner-Lawlor is professor of English and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Pennsylvania State University. She is author of Postmodern Utopias and co-curator of Plastic Entanglements.

Daniel Worden is associate professor of interdisciplinary humanities at the Rochester Institute of Technology and author of Masculine Style, editor of The Comics of Joe Sacco, and coeditor of Oil Culture and Postmodern/Postwar—and After.

Works and people referenced in the episode:

Catherine Malabou

Roland Barthes

Through the Arc of the Rain Forest by Karen Tei Yamashita

The Drought by J.G. Ballard

Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters

Covehithe by China Miéville

Artist Pinar Yoldas

Plastic by Doug Wagner and Daniel Hillyard

Great Pacific (comic, 16-issue series)

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin