Cultures of Energy

Епизоди

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  260 - Pipeline Cinema (feat. Mona Damluji) 26.07.2026 57мин

  Your cohosts' electric summer adventure has brought them to Thailand! Dominic wonders if he will be allowed to eat Thai spicy food and Cymene reports about feeding baby elephants. Then (13:44) we welcome Mona Damluji to the podcast to discuss her new book, Pipeline Cinema: The Cultural Infrastructure of Oil Extraction in Iran and Iraq (U California Press, 2025) available as open access and paperback. We begin with how Mona discovered her own great grandfather in the archive of oil's cultural workers. Then we turn to the entangled histories of Iran, Iraq and Anglo-American petroimperialism. Mona tells us about how the physical infrastructure of oil impacted the cultural infrastructure of filmmaking in the region, how the oil industry sought to make itself inevitable to the story of modernization, the life stories of the culture workers themselves and much, much more. We close with a discussion of the enduring allure of petromodernity. Check out Sanaz Sohrabi's incredible films here: https://www.sanaz-sohrabi.com/. And please also check out Mona's children's books on collective action, war and displacement, Together and I Want You to Know. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  259 - Petrostates (feat. Ryan Cecil Jobson) 13.07.2026 53мин

  The China adventure continues for your two co-hosts. Cymene and Dominic report from Zhangzhou, a small city of five million in Fujian province, and talk about party hotel life and what might have been the first energy humanities workshop in the country. And then (9:02) we welcome Ryan Cecil Jobson to the podcast to discuss his groundbreaking book, The Petro-State Masquerade: Oil, Sovereignty, and Power in Trinidad and Tobago (U Chicago Press, 2024). We begin with how petrostates seek to assert their permanence even in times of obvious crises and Ryan's insights into how the performance of permanence becomes all-powerful in maintaining petrostate legitimacy. We move from there to exploring the significance of Caribbean culture in T&T fossil fuels, thinking about the tension between the state masquerade and the people's masquerade, and the historical transition from plantation labor to oil field labor. We close talking about petronostalgia, speculative sovereignty, efforts in T&T to unlock ultradeepwater drilling, and the importance of "dwelling in the hyphen" when it comes to nation-states and petro-states. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  258 - Smog (feat. Ann Carlson) 27.06.2026 49мин

  Cymene and Dominic report from the first week of their trip to China. And then (11:22) we welcome legal scholar Ann Carlson to the podcast to talk to us about battling smog in one of our favorite cities, Los Angeles. Ann has just published a new book, Smog and Sunshine (U California Press, 2026) that tells the remarkable and often inspiring story of how Los Angeles radically improved its air quality. We begin with a reminder of how bad things once were in LA and why. Then we discuss the scientists who helped pinpoint the origins of smog (with an assist from the science of the pineapple of all things) and the oil and automobile industry which tried to suppress the science and deny, diminish and delay action. We turn to comparing the environmental challenges that smog and anthropogenic greenhouse gases pose.  Finally, we round things out by examining political polarization around climate action and the importance of government action and attribution science to climate mitigation going forward. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  257 - The Alibi of Capital (feat. Timothy Mitchell) 15.06.2026 54мин

  It's World Cup season and so your co-hosts deliver their first ever sports corner. And then (9:38) drum roll please, we welcome the one and only Tim Mitchell back to the podcast to talk about his latest masterpiece, The Alibi of Capital: How We Broke the Earth to Steal the Future on the Promise of a Better Tomorrow (Verso, 2026). We start with Tim's model of the shareholder corporation as a machine built to produce present wealth at the expense of future encumbrances. Encumbering the future is also key to how Tim is rethinking the dynamics of economic growth since his earlier work, Carbon Democracy. We talk about how growth is really an alibi of capital, one that deeply misdirects language and knowledge and entraps us in a belief that capitalist growth delivers a public good. Tim argues that both the Industrial Revolution and Keynesianism can be better understood as strategic pivots within this long run process of capitalization and future capture. We turn from there to infrastructure as a strategy of capture via delay and deferral and the critical role that technology plays in promoting misunderstanding of our relationship to the future. Finally we turn toward the climate crisis and how it exemplifies the dynamics Tim outlines in the book. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  256 - Land Art Generator (feat. Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian) 01.06.2026 1ч 1мин

  Cymene goes shopping with Beyoncé in this episode's dream sequence and if that weren't dreamy enough your co-hosts also break down the new film, Backrooms. Then (17:01) we welcome Elizabeth Monoian and Robert Ferry to the podcast to talk about their amazing Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI), a remarkable effort to surface the potential beauty of renewable energy. As a unique kind of public art enterprise, LAGI has been holding design competitions across the world since 2010. We talk about their mission to help inspire more ecologically and socially attuned modes of futurism and how land art can seed visions of better post-fossil worlds to come. We do deep dives into the projects they are currently developing in Fiji and Houston and then turn to some of LAGI's other projects including solar murals and art + energy camps. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love. Image notes = Arch of Time is a Land Art Generator artwork designed by Riccardo Mariano. Incorporating solar photovoltaic modules it will generate 400,000 kWh per year, offsetting the electricity demand of Mason Park. The artwork makes for an exceptional venue for events, learning, discovery, and play. As a time measuring device, the Arch keeps track of the sun as it moves across the sky, engaging visitors with a magical light display within a comfortably shaded outdoor space. The Arch was originally a submission to LAGI 2019 Abu Dhabi. The O by Alberto Roncelli incorporates solar photovoltaic and rainwater harvesting to produce 150,000 kWh of electricity and 1.2 million liters of filtered water each year. The winning submission to LAGI 2025 Fiji, a collaboration with the Village of Marou.
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  255 - Accelerant (feat. Ciruce Movahedi-Lankarani) 17.05.2026 55мин

  Dominic and Cymene eat crepes, share limericks and wonder whether dogs and rabbits might hold the secret to world peace on this week's episode. Then (13:09) we welcome Ciruce Mohavedi-Lankarani to the pod to talk about his new book Accelerant: Energy Infrastructures and the Natural World in Making Modern Iran newly out from Stanford U Press. We begin with how natural gas overcame its second-class status among the hydrocarbons to become the central pillar of Iranian national development strategies in the middle of the 20th century. We talk about how the material density and volatility of gas impacted efforts at building infrastructure, how Iran had to navigate the imperial ambitions of Britain, the US and the Soviet Union to claim its gas for itself, and how Iran balanced industrial and environmental goals in its development process. Ciruce explains how gas seemed to offer Iran pathways to both a glorious future and a return to a cherished past. And he explains how the Islamic Republic continued to build upon the gas developmental visions of the Pahlavi era. We close by discussing the current conflict in Iran and what it reveals about deeply how Iranian nationalism is tied to petroleum. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  254 - Shrinking Cities (feat. Fernando Ortiz-Moya) 04.05.2026 58мин

  Cymene and Dominic talk about shrinky dinks, tiny sweaters, miniaturized submarines and elemental ethnography during this week's intro segment. Then (12:12) we welcome Fernando Ortiz-Moya to the conversation to talk about his excellent new book We're Still Here: Regenerating Shrinking Cities from the Ground Up (U California Press, 2026). Fernando explains his lifelong fascination with cities with dwindling populations and why urban shrinkage doesn't always mean decline. We move from there to talking about the hegemony of growth thinking in urbanism and why top-down planning for urban renewal so often fails to produce the effects intended. We wonder about how climate change will find new ways to shrink cities and, finally, we discuss different bottom up strategies for urban regeneration and how and why informal practices usually produce better results. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  253 - Disappearing Waste (feat. Dan Sosna) 20.04.2026 50мин

  Dominic and Cymene marvel at April snow and the ice cream stylings of Ben and Jerry. Then (8:28) we welcome Dan Sosna to the podcast to discuss his new book, Europe's Disappearing Waste (Berghahn, 2026). We dive into his background in archaeology and what attracted him to landfill in the first place, how wastepicking can be viewed as a practice of "quiet sustainability", and the differences between circular economy as a bureaucratic project and an embodied project. We move from there to tech futurism's genocidal quality, what the effort to disappear waste really means and why landfill spaces have exhibited haunted, magnetic, strange qualities throughout history. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  252 - Southern Anthropocenes (feat. Casper Bruun Jensen) 05.04.2026 51мин

  Cymene and Dominic discuss what happened when ten art school kids were given a disney princess baking challenge on this week's episode of the podcast. Then (14:48) we welcome Casper Bruun Jensen to the pod to talk about a new collaboration and book project he organized called Southern Anthropocenes (Routledge, 2026). We begin with the Anthropocene concept and why Casper and his collaborators felt it was important to pluralize it. We turn from there to talking pluriversal politics, cosmopolitical openings, utopias, the need to take care of the possible and what tales of tomorrow we need to tell today. Check out Casper's Entangled Areas special issue here. And if you have time on May 11th beam into the Southern Anthropocenes conversation being hosted by the University of Tokyo. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  251 - Deep Listening (feat. Zina Saro-Wiwa) 22.03.2026 1ч 15мин

  Cymene and Dominic lament what is happening in Iran and explore what kinds of dogs they would be on this episode of the podcast. Then (15:47) we welcome to the podcast the amazing multitalented multimedia artist Zina Saro-Wiwa to talk about her work. We begin with her father Ken Saro-Wiwa's courageous activism on behalf of the Ogoni people and tragic death at the hands of Nigeria's Abacha dictatorship. We then talk about her career in journalism and how coming to terms with the past eventually propelled her toward art. We turn from there to her creative practice. Zina explains to us what she means by "deep listening", why she finds Ogoni traditions of masquerade so generative to create with and how art is an angel with many eyes. We close talking about what it takes to hear the voice of oil and the many projects Zina has now collected under the mantle of her new Mangrove Arts Foundation. Check out Zina/SIRA*'s new album Songs for the End of the World here (a taste of it can also be found in this episode's outro music). And if finances allow, please consider making a donation or contributing to a Go Fund Me campaign to help Zina to create a museum in honor of her father's life and creativity. We just did!  Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  250 - Energy Democracy (feat. Nikki Luke) 08.03.2026 59мин

  Dominic and Cymene celebrate the 250th episode of the podcast with tales of steamy avian encounter. And then (16:14) we welcome Nikki Luke to the podcast, author of the brand-new book Electric Life: Utility Regulation and the Fight for Energy Democracy (MIT Press, 2026). We start with what energy democracy means to Nikki in the context of her work on utility regulation and then move to her case study of the famously recalcitrant utility, Georgia Power, and how the history of electricity in the American South has long been entangled with white supremacist politics. We talk about the politics of setting electricity rates, how and why investor-owned utilities undermine energy transition, and the intensifying grid politics of data centers. We touch on the poverty of imagination that electrical utilities so often display and then close with a discussion of what Nikki's analytics of feminist urban political ecology reveal about the quotidian labors involved in keeping the lights on. Check out your co-hosts at SXSW on a panel with Fire of Love and Time and Water director Sara Dosa (Friday, March 13, 530p-630p, 304 E 3rd Texas House, Austin) and Cymene's presentation on elemental attentions to the History of Consciousness program at UC Santa Cruz (Monday, March 9, 1p). More details here! Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  249 - Weathering (feat. Astrida Neimanis and Jennifer Mae Hamilton) 22.02.2026 1ч 2мин

  Dominic and Cymene talk about their Cathostant (or is it Protelic?) families in this week's intro segment. And then (11:59) we are thrilled to be joined by Jennifer Mae Hamilton and Astrida Neimanis to discuss their work as the Weathering Collective, especially their inspiring new book How to Weather Together: Feminist Practice for Climate Change (Bloomsbury, 2026). We begin with their collaborative relationship, how it began and has evolved over the past decade, and how they learned to balance theory and practice together. We discuss how both climate science and feminist theory are best considered as works in progress and then turn to weather and why its capacity to attune to constant change helps us to grapple with the larger existential challenges of the climate crisis. From there, we talk about their concept of weathering as the ability to redistribute shelter and vulnerability in a climate changing world in ways that run counter to settler colonial legacies. Finally, we turn toward why they are happy to be ecofeminist again, how weathering meets undercommoning and how to cultivate and practice 'low stakes vulnerability' through games. Check out Jen's blog here and a recent publication here. Also stop by the FEELed Lab for a visit. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  248 - Maintenance & Repair (feat. Jérôme Denis & David Pontille) 08.02.2026 1ч 7мин

  Cymene and Dominic share pirate tales from the Sundance Film Festival and reimagine Heated Rivalry with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk as the lead lovers. Then (15:34) we welcome Jérôme Denis and David Pontille to the podcast to discuss not one but two new books, The Care of Things: Ethics and Politics of Maintenance (Wiley, 2025) and Fragilities: Essays on the Politics, Ethics and Aesthetics of Maintenance and Repair (MIT Press, 2025). We begin with how they became interested in the concept of fragility through their fieldwork with people responsible for maintaining and caring for infrastructure. From there, we turn toward the distinction between repair and maintenance and how their fieldwork led them to pay attention to attention as an aspect of the phenomenology of care work. We talk about how to think about the flux and power of matter and close by discussing maintenance as a subversive practice in the era of planned obsolescence and their interest in the right to repair movement.
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  247 - Feeding the Future (feat. Nicole Negowetti) 25.01.2026 1ч 26мин

  We kick things off this week with a short but heartfelt celebration of the tenth anniversary of the podcast. Several friends—Geoff Bowker, Heather Davis, Imre Szeman, John Grzinich, Karen Pinkus and Tim Morton—drop in to share thoughts about what's urgent to think and feel in energy and environmental humanities these days. Then (34:00) Cymene welcomes lawyer-scholar-activist Nicole Negowetti to speak about her new book, Feeding the Future: Restoring the Planet and Healing Ourselves (Georgtown U Press, 2026) and its spotlight on regenerative food practices and the role that communities worldwide are playing in transforming the global food system. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  246 - Radioactive Governance (feat. Maxime Polleri) 12.01.2026 1ч 6мин

  Happy 2026! It's been quite a year so far and your co-hosts talk about their recent trip to Nicaragua and Shadow's reinvention as a fly assassin. Then (17:18) we welcome Maxime Polleri to the conversation to talk about his fascinating new book Radioactive Governance: The Politics of Revitalization in Post-Fukushima Japan (NYU Press, 2025). We begin with the 2011 Fukushima earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster and the role that luck played in preventing 14 core meltdowns instead of the 3 that actually happened. From there, Maxime takes us into the center of his argument about the politics of post-disaster recovery in Japan and the myriad state efforts to downplay the severity of nuclear aftermath in order to encourage its citizens to restart their lives (and reactors). We talk about the long history of efforts to improve the image of nuclear energy, the politics of measuring radiation, state performances of radiation knowledge (including efforts to produce nuclear cuteness), and why it is so hard for some to accept that the Fukushima disaster isn't in the past but rather our future. In closing, we turn to the place of nuclear energy and disasters in the Anthropocene. Can we still speak of disaster events in the heterogeneous toxicity of the Anthropcene?
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  245 - 2025 Year in Review (feat. AI ;) 27.12.2025 43мин

  Neither headcolds nor hangovers will keep your plucky co-hosts from bringing you one more episode for 2025. Since this is supposedly the year of AI, we let ChatGPT create a Year in Review episode structure and ask us questions about energy and environmental matters in 2025. The whole thing goes off the rails pretty quickly, descending into what Cymene calls "technocratic Mad Libs". And then compounding that error, we also invited an AI voice editor program to help edit the episode. That program obviously didn't like our laughter or our banter or the critical things we kept saying about AI. So, prepare yourselves for a weird episode, dear listeners. But what better way is there to honor the disaster that was 2025, right? Peace and love and see you in 2026!! PS and if you want a do-over and experience our Plan B instead, then YouTube has covered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF14KznpnKE
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  244 – Energy Transition (feat. Jean-Baptiste Fressoz) 08.12.2025 59мин

  In honor of cookie week, your co-hosts tackle an age-old question: are brownies cookies are not? Then we process the fact that next month will be the 10th anniversary of Cultures of Energy (wow!) Thereafter (11:51) we welcome the terrific Jean-Baptiste Fressoz to the podcast to discuss his provocative and fascinating new book More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy (Penguin, 2025) and its core argument that "energy transition" is a fiction. We begin with JB's unease with the dominant historiography of energy and its tendency to focus on change rather than accumulation and move from there to his idea to write a history of energy that forefronted the symbiosis of energy and materials. We turn from there to the idea of energy amputation, how to avoid stage-ist thinking, why escaping carbon will be harder than escaping capitalism, and how the technocratic movement of the early 20th century and atomic science paved the way toward dominant narratives of energy transition and energy futures today. JB explains why he doubts—even as someone who sides with the climate movement—that we're going to escape fossil fuels any time soon. PS If you would like to send in a memory or reflection for our 10th anniversary podcast next month, please email or Wetransfer a 3-5 minute audio file to dcb2@rice.edu. We'd love to hear from you!!
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  243 - Oil and Intimacy (feat. Chelsea Schields) 25.11.2025 48мин

  Cymene and Dominic recount a pleasant business trip to New Orleans including a mild bout of Satanic panic. Then (9:10) we are joined by the delightful Chelsea Schields to talk about her recent book, Offshore Attachments: Oil and Intimacy in the Caribbean (U California Press, 2023). We begin with how research in Aruba and Curacao led her to contemplate the ubiquity of oil's presence in the Caribbean and to shine a spotlight on refineries alongside sites of extraction. We talk about how the management of sexuality and desire became key to the organization of oil labor in the region as well as to the protection of middle-class whiteness and its nuclear family model. We discuss the impact of what Chelsea calls "the offshoring of sex" through sex worker recruitment and then turn to the impact of automation on oil labor. Finally, we circle back to what happened after the oil industry went bust in Aruba and Curacao and when the islands became reimagined as energy-intensive tourist paradises. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  242 – Living Minerals (feat. Javiera Barandiarán) 10.11.2025 58мин

  Dominic and Cymene begin with the war on Chicago and Kelly Hayes's amazing essay, "In Chicago, We Run Toward Danger Together" which everyone should read. Then (15:20) we welcome Javiera Barandiarán to the podcast to talk about her new book, Living Minerals: Nature, Trade, and Power in the Race for Lithium (MIT Press, 2025), and what Javiera loves about the element of lithium. We discuss lithium's futurity and multiplicity, why Javiera thinks it's wrong to think about lithium as a single thing. From there, we talk about lithium's role in nuclear fusion, what rights of nature minerals should enjoy, and why so many people believe minerals create wealth. Then we wrap up with Javiera's other new book this year, a study of the efforts to create a new constitution for Chile, Demanding a Radical Constitution: Environmentalism, Resilience, and Participation in Chile's 2022 Reform Efforts (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025). Please also check out Lithium Landscapes and this article on Chile's energy transition. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
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  241 - Militant Chemistry (feat. Alice Lovejoy) 26.10.2025 53мин

  Dominic and Cymene talk about AI and other chowhounds to kick off this week's podcast. Then (12:46) we welcome the wonderful Alice Lovejoy to talk about her new book Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War (U California Press, 2025). We begin with the materiality of early film and how it became intertwined with the industry of chemical warfare. At stake in the making of this militant chemical complex was chemistry's fundamental principle of transformation, which brought materials like film into close alignment with a burgeoning plastics industry. We move from there to talking about the forms of expertise involved in militant chemistry, the relationship between chemistry and empire, and the politics of labor in factories operated by firms like Kodak and AGFA. We close with the affinities and disaffinities between militant chemistry and the nuclear industry. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.