Cultures of Energy

Dominic and Cymene talk diet soda, dementia and the art of titling books and then (13:40) we welcome to the pod UNC English professor Matthew Taylor, author of Universes without Us: Posthuman Cosmologies in American Literature (U Minnesota Press, 2013), to talk about, among other things, the ethics and politics of posthumanism. Matt shares thoughts about how posthumanism can veer into superhumanism and on how both ecophobia and ecophilia are entwined in our thinking about the Anthropocene. We touch on Edgar Allan Poe’s dark ecology, race and imperialism, Christianity, growth metaphysics and whether there has been a distinctively American contribution to Anthropocene philosophy. We turn from there to questions of ethics and agency and Matt’s current work on the problems of equating politics with action. Matt argues that doing less may be precisely what we need to move forward. We talk about narrative as experimentation, the narrative beats of Anthropocene discourse and the promises and perils of speciesism. Matt shares with us what he finds exciting in science fiction and we close on his thoughts on teaching critical thinking at a public university in an age of alternative facts.

A special bonus podcast this week offers a mosaic of keywords and reflections from participants in CENHS’s annual energy humanities extravaganza. Cymene and Dominic lead things off with a discussion of Margaret Thatcher’s own private restroom and what it takes to be identified as an artist these days. Then (14:25) Leah Stokes (UC Santa Barbara) talks “Republicans” and why we need them to make progress on climate change; (18:05) Timothy Moss (Humboldt U Berlin) engages the complexities of “municipalization” when it comes to energy; (21:20) our own postdoctoral fellow Abby Spinak explains why “craft” has become so meaningful to her of late; (25:39) Jón Gnarr returns to the pod to muse on “cycles” of energy addiction; (31:20) Conor Harrison (U South Carolina) discusses “islands” as sites of experimentation with renewable energy and finally (34:22) artist and engineer Natalie Jeremijenko (Environmental Health Clinic and Lab) talks “taxidermy” in the context of her Museum of Natural Futures project. Thanks for all your support and kind wishes, dear listeners. Get ready for Cultures of Energy 7 coming your way in April 2018!!

Your co-hosts chat about the return of Veep and a new indie film under production by the rogue AI of the American Anthropological Association’s panel submissions system, Being Chris Kelty. Then we welcome architectural historian Daniel Barber from Penn Design to the podcast to talk about the history of solar homes and what past ventures in solar design can teach us about our solar futures. Starting with his recent book, A House in the Sun: Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the Cold War (Oxford UP, 2016), we discuss how the Second World War and early worries about peak oil spurred solar thermal home designs in the 1940s and 1950s. We explore the relationship of modernism to solar energy and how modernism’s experimental capacity was harnessed and focused on homes to solve social problems. We also examine the role suburbanization played in this story and what we’ve forgotten about the environmental and cultural utopias that were once associated with suburban communities. Daniel explains how energy experimentation in the 1950s can be seen as alternative origin story for contemporary environmentalism, how the solar homes of the past have influenced solar homes today and how solar suburb projects in the U.S. were eventually redirected toward solar development projects in the Global South. We turn from there to Daniel’s current book project, Climatic Effects, which explores climate-focused architectural design methods from the 1930s to the 1960s and how architects contributed to the emergent science of climatology. We close on Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife, the true story behind the “arcology” and the amazing plan to move all of New Jersey into one building.

Your co-hosts chat about hyperloops, hydrarails and that time Newt Gingrich flirted with Cymene. Then (16:54) renowned sociologist Saskia Sassen joins us to share her thinking about our contemporary environmental predicament. We talk about finance as the steam engine of our era, the reasons for its recent rise, and whether Saskia feels that finance can contribute to reversing environmental degradation. We then turn to her most recent book Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy (Harvard UP, 2014), in particular to her discussion of the impacts of mining, and explore her argument that we need new concepts to replace the American-centric categories of mid 20th century social science. Saskia shares her thoughts on the Anthropocene and the Chthulucene and why she is interested in the problem of the “systemic edge” where our categories of analysis cease to capture the intensity of contemporary social and environmental conditions. We turn from there to the current crises of liberalism, water, and immigration and Saskia explains why she thinks that political classes across the world seem so checked out now. She details the unremarkable instruments that have scaled to produce planet-wide environmental destruction and asks whether it’s possible to imagine equally simple instruments for doing good in the world, perhaps by thinking and acting more like the biosphere itself. Finally we return to one of Saskia’s favorite topics—cities—and how urban space contains our future frontiers of politics and life. What are the ethics of the city? What’s it like to walk the city with Saskia Sassen? Listen on and find out!

Dominic and Cymene discuss this week's rollback of the Clean Power Plan and Cymene’s 1980s close encounter with Adam Ant. Then (14:55) we are delighted to welcome UCLA anthropologist Hannah Appel to the podcast. We grade Rex Tillerson’s performance as an oil exec and transition from there to Hannah’s research on the oil industry in Equatorial Guinea. She explains the problems with considering oil only in terms of money and rents and how oil companies have been instrumental in statecraft across the world for a very long time. We learn how the discovery of offshore oil led to what is now the world’s longest running political regime in Equatorial Guinea. Hannah dissects and challenges the assumptions of the “oil curse” argument for us and discusses why Nigeria is the model failure everyone wants to avoid. Then we talk about the places where the licit life of capitalism is made and all the work that goes into making it seem as though capitalism is disembedded from social life. That brings us to expatriate enclave life, what happens when oil does become money, and the limits of liberalism. Finally Hannah shares her thoughts on our contemporary political moment and what she finds new and old about it.

On this week’s special bonus episode, ClimateKitten45 and CarbonYeti27 kick things off by scheming on how to get a million YouTube subscribers. Then we expand to become a fantastic foursome of climate podcasters when we welcome (10:23) writer Kate Aronoff (In These Times) and writer/sociologist Daniel Aldana Cohen (U Penn), co-hosts of the Hot & Bothered pod (hosted by Dissent Magazine). We talk about why we all got started podcasting and how it helps us to seem generally less like killjoys and maybe save a few friendships. Daniel and Kate explain how H&B got started, how they bridge climate and labor politics through their work and we ruminate about what we do and don’t know about our respective audiences. We cover the challenges of communicating expertise in an alternative facts moment, the current government vendetta against the environment, greentech fantasies, the prospects for low carbon populism and a green New Deal, catastrophe porn, the problem with non-unionized green jobs, and how to frame climate change as potentially also bringing positive change to our world. We ask who are the people of climate and how can they be better mobilized and then decide that low carbon hedonism could probably sell itself. We close on dense affordable housing and rural electric cooperatives as important sites of political action to address climate change. Stay hot, stay bothered, dear listeners, and catch up on back episodes of Hot & Bothered at https://www.dissentmagazine.org/tag/hot-bothered, on iTunes or at the low carbon (hedonist) audio provider of your choice!

Cymene and Dominic honor the new river citizens of Aotearoa-New Zealand and India and try to give certain politicians credit where credit is due. Then (13:53) we welcome to the pod University of Washington philosopher Stephen Gardiner to talk about his philosophical work on climate change. We discuss his background in virtue ethics and how one might conceive living an ethical life given the fundamental moral challenges of climate change. Then we turn to his book A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change (Oxford University Press, 2011) wherein Stephen talks back against arguments that it is technologically or economically infeasible at present to seriously address the causes of climate change. We discuss temptations to act badly both at a global and a personal level, the ethical and institutional dimensions of intergenerational and interspecies relations, the tyranny of the contemporary, and why he doesn’t think concepts like “wicked problem,” “prisoners’ dilemma” and “tragedy of the commons” are inadequate to understand a phenomenon like climate change. Stephen explains his proposal to form a Global Constitutional Convention on Future Generations and why he feels a policy approach to climate change that does not involve a discussion of values will not succeed. We discuss his concerns about geoengineering and about emphasizing renewable energy development’s capacity to generate wealth. We close then on the question of ordinary ethics and how to stave off moral corruption. Can current governments effectively represent the interests of future generations? Do we need an Integenerational Supreme Court? Listen on and find out!

On this week’s spring break edition of the Cultures of Energy podcast, Cymene and Dominic talk about the dangers of hiking and Trump’s budget. Then [10:37] we welcome to the podcast the ever delightful Geof Bowker. With Geof we talk about why infrastructure studies has become such a lively area of research in the human sciences and muse over some the possible explanations for its rise. Has infrastructure become too broad a category? Is it a nostalgic one? Geof asks not only what is an infrastructure but also when is an infrastructure. And he weighs in on Trump’s infrastructure plan as well. We turn from there to another charismatic topic—data—as Geof reflects on his work on data ethics and how theory gets built into data. We talk algorithms, racist artificial intelligence, the internet of things and the impact of cybernetics on social theory. We then move on to biodiversity, matters of concern and the relationship between science studies and climate skepticism. Geof shares with us the secret behind how he gained access to energy titan Schlumberger’s archives for his pathbreaking book, Science on the Run (MIT, 1994), and talks about how oil companies work to shift senses of time and space in the interests of empire. Finally, Cymene and Geof talk through the graphic novel project, Unda, they are working on with Laura Watts and how media like comic books can offer scholars new opportunities to reach wider audiences.

Cymene and Dominic read their spam and ruminate on the evolving alien intelligence of the interweb. Then (14:40) our old friend David Hughes from Rutgers joins the conversation. We consider the carbon footprint of academic life and then turn to his excellent and brand spanking new book, Energy Without Conscience: Oil, Climate Change, and Complicity (Duke UP, 2017), which explores the moral shallowness surrounding petrocapitalism and how oil evolved from being a moral issue into a technical one. David talks about his fieldwork with petroleum geologists in the world’s first petrostate, Trinidad and Tobago, and how they think about oil and complicity. David also shares his historical research on Caribbean plantation labor and how slavery helped create the ideological basis for the later fuel economy. We talk about biophysical engagements with different energy forms and whether the materialist turn in the human sciences has had anything to do with the vibrancy of oil. We cover the ethics of combustion, individual vs collective responsibility, and that time David asked Joe Biden what he was going to do about climate change. Finally, we turn to David’s current and (more hopeful!) research on a new energy landscape, the wind farms of Andalucia, Spain. David argues that as we move toward a green energy system we need to confront the fact that there will be less labor and thus we need to learn to build a modern life independent of the wage form. To order Energy Without Conscience at a 30% discount (!) please visit http://dukeupress.edu/energy-without-conscience and enter coupon code E17ENRGY during checkout. Special thanks to Mark Vardy and the Princeton Environmental Institute for helping to make this week’s podcast happen!

Dominic and Cymene marvel at the rise of transplanetary anthropology on this week’s podcast, as well as outer space films (and sexed up goblins). Then (16:08) we welcome the University of Virginia’s celestial Lisa Messeri to the conversation. A lively chat about her research with exoplanetary scientists follows. Lisa reminds us of the extraterrestrial roots of much climate science and explains why she thinks we now need to “un-earth” the Anthropocene. We talk through the connections between our terran conditions of environmental precarity and our renewed interest in other planets. We compare news coverage of the Standing Rock clearance and the Trappist-1 exoplanets and discuss why the latter seemed to get so much more press. We talk geos vs. bios in the imagination of outer space, Elon Musk and the New Space community, what it means for a planet to be habitable, and how the logic of settler colonialism infiltrates the idea of space frontiers. Lisa shares her hot takes on The Martian, why she thinks we’re seeing so many outer space movies right now, and why the future of humanity obviously depends on Matt Damon. We close on her book, Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds (Duke UP, 2016) and why she thinks place-making is so important in the human engagement with outer space. Why do planets have to be round? Who was the star surprise guest at Lisa’s dissertation defense? Listen on and find out! PS Shouts out to Abby Spinak and the Rice Space Institute for making Lisa’s visit to Rice possible!