“Cultures of Energy: Global Economies and Local Communities"

How do we understand the choices we are making about energy and the environment? What are the psychological and cultural factors at work in various energy and environmental conflicts? How does context and history impact how we envision and institute energy transition projects? What factors structure decision-making? How is knowledge about energy and the environment made, altered, and communicated? And finally, as we grapple with energy in the twenty-first century, what do we potentially gain, what might we lose, and why?

These questions—grounded in the humanities disciplines of philosophy, anthropology, history, linguistics, religious studies and literature—vitalize multi-disciplinary humanities research and, as importantly, inform one of the most pressing intellectual projects of the twenty-first century—understanding and creating intelligent, compassionate, and socially just answers to our most pressing energy problems. When leading humanists engage in multi-disciplinary collaboration with other humanists, social scientists, and scientists, these questions yield answers that have the potential to transform the way we see and attempt to solve energy and environmental issues.  

This initiative was awarded a highly selective Mellon Foundation John E. Sawyer Seminar grant for 2012-13 to bring together internationally recognized energy experts, fifteen faculty members, one postdoctoral fellow, and graduate and undergraduate students to explore the humanistic questions posed by the current energy and environmental crisis. This year, the multidisciplinary faculty working group is organizing a public lecture series, "Energy and the Humanities," to pave the way for next year's seminar.

The HRC's undergraduate fellows are also key to this planning phase. Fellows will participate in group discussions, led by predoctoral fellow Marcel LaFlamme, a graduate student in anthropology, to design a syllabus for an introductory course on cultures of energy that they can then take the following year. Follow their work here: http://www.culturesofenergy.com.

Events

(click on event for more info)

Friday, September 30, 2011 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Naomi Oreskes, Professor of History and Science Studies
University of California, San Diego
"Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming"

Kristin Shrader-Frechette, O'Neill Family Professor, Department of Biological Sciences and Department of Philosophy
University of Notre Dame
"The Best Economic Science Money Can Buy: Why People Don't Realize that Renewable Energy is Cheaper than Nuclear Power"

Friday, December 9, 2011 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Kairn Klieman, Associate Professor of History
University of Houston and HRC External Faculty Fellow, Fall 2011
"U.S. Oil Companies, the Lend-Lease Program, and American Diplomacy in Africa, 1940-45"

Dale Jamieson, Director of Environmental Studies and Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy, and Affiliated Professor of Law
New York University 
"Reason in a Dark Time:  Ethics and Politics in a Greenhouse World"

Friday, February 3, 2012 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Paul Edwards, Professor, and Gabrielle Hecht, Professor
University of Michigan

"Knowing the Invisible: Climate Change, Nuclear Things, and their Entangled Histories"

Friday, April 13, 2012 
4:00 PM Kyle Morrow Room, Fondren Library

Timothy Mitchell, Professor, Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures
Columbia University 
"The Prize from Fairyland: Histories of Oil and Matters of Democracy"

Friday, April 20, 2012 
Cultures of Energy Spring Symposium  
1:00-5:30pm, 3092 Duncan Hall  

Sam Deese, Boston University "Black Gold Under Shangri-La: the Role of Oil in Aldous Huxley’s Island" 

Christopher Dietrich, University of Texas at Austin "OPEC and the Third World: An Unholy Union?"

Jeff Kripal, Rice University "Brave New Worldview: The Return of Aldous Huxley"

Doug Rogers, Yale University "Petrobarter: Rethinking Oil and Money"