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PetroculturesOil, Politics, Culture |
eBook Available
A wide-ranging interdisciplinary study of oil and energy culture.
Contemporary life is founded on oil - a cheap, accessible, and rich source of energy that has shaped cities and manufacturing economies at the same time that it has increased mobility, global trade, and environmental devastation. Despite oil’s essential role, full recognition of its social and cultural significance has only become a prominent feature of everyday debate and discussion in the early twenty-first century.
Presenting a multifaceted analysis of the cultural, social, and political claims and assumptions that guide how we think and talk about oil, Petrocultures maps the complex and often contradictory ways in which oil has influenced the public’s imagination around the world. This collection of essays shows that oil’s vast network of social and historical narratives and the processes that enable its extraction are what characterize its importance, and that its circulation through this immense web of relations forms worldwide experiences and expectations. Contributors’ essays investigate the discourses surrounding oil in contemporary culture while advancing and configuring new ways to discuss the cultural ecosystem that it has created.
A window into the social role of oil, Petrocultures also contemplates what it would mean if human life were no longer deeply shaped by the consumption of fossil fuels.
Presenting a multifaceted analysis of the cultural, social, and political claims and assumptions that guide how we think and talk about oil, Petrocultures maps the complex and often contradictory ways in which oil has influenced the public’s imagination around the world. This collection of essays shows that oil’s vast network of social and historical narratives and the processes that enable its extraction are what characterize its importance, and that its circulation through this immense web of relations forms worldwide experiences and expectations. Contributors’ essays investigate the discourses surrounding oil in contemporary culture while advancing and configuring new ways to discuss the cultural ecosystem that it has created.
A window into the social role of oil, Petrocultures also contemplates what it would mean if human life were no longer deeply shaped by the consumption of fossil fuels.
Details
544 Pages, 6 x 9
17 photos
ISBN 9780773550384
June 2017
Formats: Cloth, Paperback, eBook
"Offering a diverse collection of historical, geographical, and literary scholarship, Petrocultures expands the reach of the Energy Humanities and helps to solidify Canadian leadership in this interdisciplinary venture. The collection represents a major contribution to research on the cultural dimensions of the extractive economies of fossil fuel." Stephanie LeMenager, University of Oregon
"Today, oil is everywhere. Yet, we will have to start leaving more of it in the ground if we are going to do what is right for ourselves, our futures, and our environments. Petrocultures helps to make visible how oil has shaped our lives, economies, and cultures, and it also presents visions of alternatives that would transition us away from the burning of fossil fuels. It is an invaluable collection, and it is a welcome extension of the ongoing conversation about how to understand and reshape our energy cultures." Daniel Worden, Rochester Institute of Technology, coeditor of Oil Culture
“This comprehensive collection opens the lid on a barrel of oil and analyzes it from nearly every angle possible: as an infrastructural network, a complicated material substance, an aesthetic, and a philosophical problem. A valuable text featuring the best from the burgeoning field of the energy humanities.” Matthew T Huber, Maxwell School of Syracuse University
"This interdisciplinary collection of papers includes diverse styles of argumentation: cultural studies, including the visual arts (e.g., Burtynsky’s photography and films); pulp fiction; poetry; a radio play; song lyrics; children’s videos; and literary criticism and social science analysis. A valuable introduction to the new field of energy humanities." CHOICE
"Today, oil is everywhere. Yet, we will have to start leaving more of it in the ground if we are going to do what is right for ourselves, our futures, and our environments. Petrocultures helps to make visible how oil has shaped our lives, economies, and cultures, and it also presents visions of alternatives that would transition us away from the burning of fossil fuels. It is an invaluable collection, and it is a welcome extension of the ongoing conversation about how to understand and reshape our energy cultures." Daniel Worden, Rochester Institute of Technology, coeditor of Oil Culture
“This comprehensive collection opens the lid on a barrel of oil and analyzes it from nearly every angle possible: as an infrastructural network, a complicated material substance, an aesthetic, and a philosophical problem. A valuable text featuring the best from the burgeoning field of the energy humanities.” Matthew T Huber, Maxwell School of Syracuse University
"This interdisciplinary collection of papers includes diverse styles of argumentation: cultural studies, including the visual arts (e.g., Burtynsky’s photography and films); pulp fiction; poetry; a radio play; song lyrics; children’s videos; and literary criticism and social science analysis. A valuable introduction to the new field of energy humanities." CHOICE
Sheena Wilson is associate professor of English and cultural studies at the University of Alberta.
Adam Carlson is a PhD candidate in English and film studies at the University of Alberta.
Imre Szeman is Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta.
Adam Carlson is a PhD candidate in English and film studies at the University of Alberta.
Imre Szeman is Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta.
Contents
Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
On Petrocultures: Or, Why We Need to Understand Oil to
Understand Everything Else 3
Sheena Wilson, Imre Szeman, and Adam Carlson
PART ONE: RIGS, PLATFORMS, AND PIPELINES 21
1 Extreme Oil and the Perils of Cinematic Practice 27
Brenda Longfellow
2 Containing Oil: The Pipeline in Petroculture 36
Graeme Macdonald
3 Who We Are and What We Do: Canada as a Pipeline Nation 78
Darin Barney
4 Can the Petro-Modern State Form “Wither Away”? The
Implications of Hyperobjects for Anti-Statist Politics 120
Michael Truscello
PART TWO: AMERICAN PETRO-IMAGINARIES: MODERNISM
AND AUTOMOBILITY 133
5 Behind the Closet Door: Pixar and Petro-Literacy 138
Michael Malouf
6 “Made for Mankind”: Cars, Cosmetics, and the Petrocultural
Feminine 162
Cecily Devereux
7 Oil Tragedy as Modern Genre 187
Glenn Willmott
8 Where Is the Oil in Modernism? 197
Joshua Schuster
PART THREE: PETRO-MATTERS:
PLASTICITY, TOXICITY, LUBRICITY 215
9 Plastic Vision and the Sight of Petroculture 222
Amanda Boetzkes
10 Oil Futures/Petrotextiles 242
Kirsty Robertson
11 Holding Water in Times of Hydrophobia 264
Janine MacLeod
12 Lubricity: Smooth Oil’s Political Frictions 287
Mark Simpson
PART FOUR: OIL THEORY 319
13 Petrocultures in Passive Revolution: The Autonomous Domain of
Treaty Poetics 325
Sourayan Mookerjea
14 Getting into Accidents: Stoekl, Virilio, Postsustainability 355
Randy Schroeder
15 Being and Oil: Or, How to Run a Pipeline through Heidegger 377
Andrew Pendakis
16 Petroleum’s Longue Durée: Writing Oil’s Temporalities into
History 389
Tim Kaposy
PART FIVE: PETROSCAPE AESTHETICS 407
17 Petro-Pastoralism: Agrarian Hydrocarbons in South Trinidad 411
David McDermott Hughes
18 Sensing Oil: Sublime Art and Politics in Canada 431
Georgiana Banita
19 Photography from Benjamin to Žižek, via the Petrochemical
Sublime of Edward Burtynsky 458
Clint Burnham
PART SIX: NEW STORIES, NEW KNOWLEDGE:
RESEARCH CREATION 477
20 Live from Alberta! Radio Petro Presents A Scary Home
Companion 479
Geo Takach
21 The Tar Sands Exploration Station: A Self-Directed Artist
Residency 498
Allison Rowe
Contributors 507
Index 515
Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
On Petrocultures: Or, Why We Need to Understand Oil to
Understand Everything Else 3
Sheena Wilson, Imre Szeman, and Adam Carlson
PART ONE: RIGS, PLATFORMS, AND PIPELINES 21
1 Extreme Oil and the Perils of Cinematic Practice 27
Brenda Longfellow
2 Containing Oil: The Pipeline in Petroculture 36
Graeme Macdonald
3 Who We Are and What We Do: Canada as a Pipeline Nation 78
Darin Barney
4 Can the Petro-Modern State Form “Wither Away”? The
Implications of Hyperobjects for Anti-Statist Politics 120
Michael Truscello
PART TWO: AMERICAN PETRO-IMAGINARIES: MODERNISM
AND AUTOMOBILITY 133
5 Behind the Closet Door: Pixar and Petro-Literacy 138
Michael Malouf
6 “Made for Mankind”: Cars, Cosmetics, and the Petrocultural
Feminine 162
Cecily Devereux
7 Oil Tragedy as Modern Genre 187
Glenn Willmott
8 Where Is the Oil in Modernism? 197
Joshua Schuster
PART THREE: PETRO-MATTERS:
PLASTICITY, TOXICITY, LUBRICITY 215
9 Plastic Vision and the Sight of Petroculture 222
Amanda Boetzkes
10 Oil Futures/Petrotextiles 242
Kirsty Robertson
11 Holding Water in Times of Hydrophobia 264
Janine MacLeod
12 Lubricity: Smooth Oil’s Political Frictions 287
Mark Simpson
PART FOUR: OIL THEORY 319
13 Petrocultures in Passive Revolution: The Autonomous Domain of
Treaty Poetics 325
Sourayan Mookerjea
14 Getting into Accidents: Stoekl, Virilio, Postsustainability 355
Randy Schroeder
15 Being and Oil: Or, How to Run a Pipeline through Heidegger 377
Andrew Pendakis
16 Petroleum’s Longue Durée: Writing Oil’s Temporalities into
History 389
Tim Kaposy
PART FIVE: PETROSCAPE AESTHETICS 407
17 Petro-Pastoralism: Agrarian Hydrocarbons in South Trinidad 411
David McDermott Hughes
18 Sensing Oil: Sublime Art and Politics in Canada 431
Georgiana Banita
19 Photography from Benjamin to Žižek, via the Petrochemical
Sublime of Edward Burtynsky 458
Clint Burnham
PART SIX: NEW STORIES, NEW KNOWLEDGE:
RESEARCH CREATION 477
20 Live from Alberta! Radio Petro Presents A Scary Home
Companion 479
Geo Takach
21 The Tar Sands Exploration Station: A Self-Directed Artist
Residency 498
Allison Rowe
Contributors 507
Index 515
