In the final installment in our series on the impact of Timothy Mitchell's "Carbon Democracy," historian Troy Vettese explores Mitchell's unique scholarly method. Vettese argues that the power and originality of Mitchell's books, including "Carbon Democracy," stems from his adoption of approaches from postcolonial studies and Actor Network Theory (ANT). Mitchell has avoided ANT’s tendency to conservatism and has instead practised a radical critique of the economic, environmental, and political structures that he studies.
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.
Brent Ryan Bellamy explores what it means to do fieldwork in the energy humanities classroom and reflects on how an "oil inventory" assignment can reorient how students see literature, themselves, and the world.
Casey Williams provides a definition and overview of the Energy Humanities. It is a field of studies that attends to the ways energy resources, systems, and use patterns shape the material, social, and cultural conditions of modern life. Understanding what it means to live in a fossil-fueled world—at a moment when planetary warming compels a transition away from fossil energy—is its chief task. What new habits, values, desires, and forms of life and art might obtain in a world “after oil”?
