On Petrocultures

On Petrocultures brings together key essays by Imre Szeman a leading scholar in the field of energy humanities and a critical voice in debates about globalization and neoliberalism. Szemans most important and influential essays in dialog with exciting new pieces written for the book investigate ever-evolving circuits of power in the contemporary world as manifested in struggles over space and belonging redefinitions of work and individual autonomy and the deep links between energy use and climate change.. These essays explore life lived in the twenty-first century by examining critically the vocabulary through which capitalism makes sense of itself focusing on concepts like the nation globalization neoliberalism creativity and entrepreneurship. At the heart of the volume is the concept of petrocultures which demands that we understand a fundamental fact of modern life: we are shaped by and through fossil fuels. Szeman argues that we cannot take steps to address global warming without fundamentally changing social cultural and political norms and expectations developed in conjunction with the energy riches of the past century. On Petrocultures maps the significant challenge of our dependence on fossil fuels and probes ways that we might begin to leave petrocultures behind.