Petrocultures : oil, politics, culture / edited by Sheena Wilson, Adam Carlson, and Imre Szeman.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Wilson, Sheena, editor.

Carlson, Adam, 1978- editor.

Szeman, Imre, 1968- editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Petroleum industry and trade--Social aspects.

Petroleum industry and trade.

Petroleum industry and trade--Political aspects.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (545 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal, [Quebec] : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2017.

Summary:

"The character of contemporary life depends fundamentally on oil--a cheap, accessible, and rich source of energy that has fuelled the shape of our cities, manufacturing economies, global trade, auto-mobility, and more. And yet it is only over the past decade that full recognition of oil's social and cultural significance has become a prominent feature of everyday debate and discussion. Petrocultures: Oil, Politics, Culture offers a multifaceted analysis of the cultural, social, and political claims and assumptions that guide how we think and talk about oil. This interdisciplinary collection of essays offers a map of the complex and often contradictory ways in which oil has come to be positioned in public imaginaries around the world. While oil is a physical substance, it only holds the significance it does for publics around the world as a result of the social and historical narratives and processes that enable its extraction and which shape the cultural forms, experiences, and expectations within which it circulates. The ground breaking energy humanities essays collected in Petrocultures investigate the narratives and discourses surrounding oil in contemporary culture, so that we might more fully understand its true social role and significance--and what it might mean to shift to cultures no longer shaped so deeply by fossil fuels."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Figures

Acknowledgments

On Petrocultures: Or, Why We Need to Understand Oil to Understand Everything Else

Rigs, Platforms, and Pipelines

Extreme Oil and the Perils of Cinematic Practice

Containing Oil: The Pipeline in Petroculture

Who We Are and What We Do: Canada as a Pipeline Nation

Can the Petro-Modern State Form “Wither Away”? The Implications of Hyperobjects for Anti-Statist Politics

American Petro-Imaginaries: Modernism and Automobility

Behind the Closet Door: Pixar and Petro-Literacy

“Made for Mankind”: Cars, Cosmetics, and the Petrocultural Feminine

Oil Tragedy as Modern Genre

Where Is the Oil in Modernism?

Petro-Matters: Plasticity, Toxicity, Lubricity

Plastic Vision and the Sight of Petroculture

Oil Futures/Petrotextiles

Holding Water in Times of Hydrophobia

Lubricity: Smooth Oil's Political Frictions

Oil Theory

Petrocultures in Passive Revolution: The Autonomous Domain of Treaty Poetics

Getting into Accidents: Stoekl, Virilio, Postsustainability

Being and Oil: Or, How to Run a Pipeline through Heidegger

Petroleum's Longue Durée: Writing Oil's Temporalities into History

Petroscape Aesthetics

Petro-Pastoralism: Agrarian Hydrocarbons in South Trinidad

Sensing Oil: Sublime Art and Politics in Canada

Photography from Benjamin to Žižek, via the Petrochemical Sublime of Edward Burtynsky

New Stories, New Knowledge: Research Creation

Live from Alberta! Radio Petro Presents A Scary Home Companion

The Tar Sands Exploration Station: A Self-Directed Artist Residency

Contributors

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed July 7, 2017).

ISBN:

9780773550407

0773550402

9780773550391

0773550399

OCLC:

1004562784