Cultures of Energy

Latest Episodes:

247 - Feeding the Future (feat. Nicole Negowetti) Jan 25, 2026

Show notes

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.

246 - Radioactive Governance (feat. Maxime Polleri) Jan 12, 2026

Show notes

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?

245 - 2025 Year in Review (feat. AI ;) Dec 27, 2025

Show notes

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

244 – Energy Transition (feat. Jean-Baptiste Fressoz) Dec 08, 2025

Show notes

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!!

243 - Oil and Intimacy (feat. Chelsea Schields) Nov 25, 2025

Show notes

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.

242 – Living Minerals (feat. Javiera Barandiarán) Nov 10, 2025

Show notes

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.

241 - Militant Chemistry (feat. Alice Lovejoy) Oct 26, 2025

Show notes

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.

240 - Carbon Banking (feat. Ben Luzzatto & Gustav Peebles) Oct 13, 2025

Show notes

We begin this episode with a shoutout to our friends at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) and try to settle once and for all the Montreal vs New York bagel question. Then (13:58) we welcome to the pod old friends and new co-authors Gustav Peebles and Ben Luzzatto to talk about their new book, The First and Last Bank - Climate Change, Currency, and a New Carbon Commons (MIT Press, 2025). We start with their bold idea that the history of the monetary gold standard could be reconceived as a beta test for a new carbon banking paradigm to draw down atmospheric carbon, convert it into biochar and sequester it in a Fort Knox of sorts. But what about carbon's earthly abundance and lack of charismatic features such as gold possesses? Ben and Gustav have answers for us and we move from there to talking about how to make carbon sacred, the project of converting waste into wealth, and how digital money and even crypto could help widen public participation in carbon banking. We examine the growing movement around biochar, and what we can learn from the 19th century activists that created the deposit banking system. Finally, we talk about the practicalities of how to get a carbon bank off the ground. Please listen and share! Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day! Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.

239 - Carbon Capital (feat. Sean Field) Sep 30, 2025

Show notes

There be tales of two Sean Fields on this week's podcast. Happily, we are only welcoming (8:56) the smart and accomplished Dr. Field to the podcast to talk about his pathbreaking new ethnography of oil and finance, Carbon Capital: Climate Change and the Ethics of Oil Investing (NYU Press, 2025). We begin with why it matters to understand the moral landscape and ethical values of oil investment. From there, the conversation evolves to include oil and Christianity, the intersection of value and values, why the oil industry "inhales capital" and how private equity firms helped US oil and gas industry explode in size. We dig into how both finance and oil discount the future, the moral philosophy of oil evangelist Alex Epstein and much, much more. Please listen and share! Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.

238 - Thinking Like a Climate (feat. Hannah Knox) Sep 15, 2025

Show notes

Cymene and Dominic talk about screamo music and the band Phish and how you can't fake the feels on this week's intro to the podcast. Then (13:07) expert in all things Mancunian, the great and wondrous Hannah Knox joins the conversation to discuss her recent book Thinking Like a Climate: Governing a City in Times of Environmental Change (Duke UP). Hannah explains to us how climate change has challenged both the concepts and methods of urban governance and how governmental and non-governmental experts in Manchester have sought to come to terms with the scope of the problem. We talk carbon footprints, emissions tracking, vernacular engineers and much more, concluding with a discussion of how climate change challenges conventional anthropological concepts and methods too. Please listen and share! Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.

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