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In her review of Victor Seow's groundbreaking recent book, "Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia" (University of Chicago Press, 2021), Elizabeth Miller notes the shared features of modern extractivism that are evident across states and geographies.
Philosopher Oxana Timofeeva explores human conceptions of the sun, from ancient mythologies and philosophical metaphors to modern techno-scientific designs to extract virtually unlimited amounts of energy. In this elegant essay, Timofeeva offers a mythological rejoinder to unbounded techno-scientific ambitions, noting that the endless pursuit of extraction, even when applied to solar energy, is likely to end up like an ecological Icarus.
In this author's note on her new co-authored book, A Strategic Nature, Melissa Aronczyk explores the connection between public relations and carbon democracy. Aronczyk also details her surprising relationship with E. Bruce Harrison, the PR pioneer who dedicated his career to crafting messages for chemical and energy companies and whose contributions to our contemporary "culture of publicity" continue to shape political struggles over the environment.
In the second installment in our series of essays on the impact of Timothy Mitchell's "Carbon Democracy," historian and cultural critic Bob Johnson assesses the book's intellectual contributions to the study of energy and society. In so doing, Johnson argues that the book's two main insights have too often been neglected and calls on scholars to consider anew how we might engage more deeply with the implications of Mitchell's work.
In 2008, Canadian artist Sandra Sawatzky set out to embroider the social history of oil. Nine years and 17, 000 hours of work later, she completed her epic Black Gold Tapestry, which visualizes our relationship to energy like never before.
