Cultures of Energy

Cymene and Dominic report from Berlin, a land of feisty wasps (which are possibly bees) and haunted lakes. Then (16:38) we are so thrilled to welcome Queen of Ecodelia, Stacy Alaimo back to the podcast to discuss her brand new book The Abyss Stares Back: Encounters with Deep-Sea Life (U Minnesota Press, 2025). We talk about the history of the deep sea as a space of military, capitalist and scienti...

Cymene and Dominic report from the most sus tourist apartment in Barcelona. Then (15:48) we are delighted to welcome Mark Goodale to the pod talk about his forthcoming book about the Bolivian lithium boom, Extracting the Future : Lithium in an era of Transition (U California Press, 2025). We start with the long history of extractivism in Bolivia, and why he found the concept of assemblage helpful...

Dominic and Cymene complete their stint in paradise on this week's podcast. We review some highlights from the final lap including multispecies erotica (snail edition) and Cymene's first karaoke performance. Then (19:04) we are thrilled to welcome Rafico Ruiz ( https://raficoruiz.info ) to the conversation, the author of Slow Disturbance (Duke UP, 2021) who is finalizing a new book project Phase S...

Cymene and Dominic check in briefly from Italy on this week's podcast, begging your pardon for the lack of a guest and the double-helping of co-host chat time. But there is an Italian train-to-convent adventure to share as well as an update from this week  Undercurrents conference in Venice and thoughts on season 2 of The Rehearsal . Back in two weeks with more excellent guests!

Cymene and Dominic arrive in Italy just in time for the naming of another Chicagoan as pope and discover the wonders of street to table cuisine. Then (15:41) we welcome the amazing Candace Fujikane to the podcast to talk about her book Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future: Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartographies in Hawai'i (Duke University Press, 2021). We start with the Hawaiian conce...

Cymene tells us about her struggles to get a passing grade in art class in this week's podcast. And then (15:20) we welcome a dear friend, Marina Peterson from UT-Austin, to the podcast. We start with her book Atmospheric Noise: The Indefinite Urbanism of Los Angeles (Duke UP) and its study of the making of atmospheres and noise pollution and how it helps us to attune to less earthbound dimensions...

Cymene communes with Californian nature (slugs and all) on this edition of the podcast. Then (14:33) we welcome Radha D'Souza and Jonas Staal to the podcast to talk about their amazing project, the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC). The CICC aims to put the law itself on trial by creating new laws and juridical mechanisms capable of actually holding states and corporations to accou...

Cymene and Dominic advise universities on how to handle blackmailers and wish a certain daughter a happy birthday on this sweet sixteen episode of the podcast. Then (13:40) Dominic chats with the brilliant Thea Riofrancos about her new book Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism (now available for pre-order from WW Norton here ). We start with extraction as a difficult topic for the Left an...

Even though Cymene and Dominic clearly dislike billionaires they sure seemed enchanted by pirate gold in this episode of the podcast. Then (16:44) we talk to Jerry Zee about where he got the idea to pursue a political anthropology of strange weather in China. We discuss his recent book Continent in Dust: Experiments in a Chinese Weather System (U California Press, 2022) and how sand becomes a "the...

Dominic and Cymene bask in their new mics in this week's podcast and talk about a new Glacier Graveyard installation coming soon to the UNESCO HQ in Paris. Then (15:55) we welcome Jamie Jones to the podcast to talk about her new book, Rendered Obsolete (U North Carolina Press, 2023). We talk to Jamie about how whale oil defined the historical context into which petroleum was born and contributed t...

Cymene gives us part one of a two-part story about her imminent return to the world of being tattooed and defends USAID while Dominic rants for a while about Democrats' spinelessness as BigTechMaga organizes to eliminate both marginalized communities and the educated classes. Then (19:50) we welcome Myles Lennon (Brown University) to the podcast to talk about his new book, Subjects of the Sun . We...

Cultures of Energy is back and biweekly for 2025! Half interviews with bright and shiny people, half unlicensed therapy (for us anyway), half everything related to energy and environment issues. Today it's podcasting against fascism with the spiritual guidance of our dear friend Timothy Morton. Dominic and Cymene see if they can think of something positive to say and then discuss Taylor Sheridan's...

Dominic and Cymene are beaming to you this week from a European Cup-addled Berlin. They share a few reflections on their time in Cape Town and then ruminate on why it is it doesn't seem possible to hate anyone from California. Is it the sunshine? As if to underscore this point about the essential good of Californians, we welcome to the podcast (15:55) two brilliant residents of the Golden State, B...

Cymene and Dominic recap last week's Petrocultures Los Angeles conference and discuss the new climate lawsuit filed in France seeking to press criminal charges against the CEO and directors of the French oil major TotalEnergies. Then (15:27) we welcome the brilliant and megatalented Rania Ghosn to the podcast. We start with the work of Design Earth , Rania's practice together with El Hadi Jazairy...

Dominic and Cymene react to the police violence sweeping across US university campuses. Then (15:11) we are thrilled to welcome CNN's Chief Climate Correspondent, Bill Weir, to the podcast. We begin with the big news of the day—the landmark legal ruling by the European court of human rights that Switzerland had violated the human rights of more than 2,000 older Swiss women by failing to cut its na...

Cymene tries to convince Dominic to join the Freemasons on this episode of the Cultures of Energy podcast. Plus, a shallow dive into Buzkashi, the national sport of Tajikistan, the country that helped convince the UN to designate 2025 the International Year of Glaciers' Preservation. Then (13:22) we are thrilled to welcome Siddharth Sareen from U Stavanger, author of The Sun Also Rises in Portugal...

Cymene accounts for her mysterious conversion from a coffee-drinker to a tea-drinker but [spoiler alert] it turns out she's not a doppelganger after all. Then after some EV road trip talk (16:06) we are delighted to have Cristián Simonetti join us from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. We start with Cris's research on concrete, one of the most abundant contemporary materials, and what...

Cymene arrives at the Covid party on this week's episode and she's got the sultry radio voice to prove it. We share a few words about a magnificent pug named Doug and Cymene discovers  Russell Brand's rightward "grift drift" to her horror. Then (18:58) we welcome Laurie Parsons to the podcast to talk about his excellent new book, Carbon Colonialism (Manchester U Press, 2023), which originated from...

The Cultures of Energy podcast is back with the first of several new episodes for 2024. First, Cymene and Dominic share what they've learned from their very late arrival to watching the show Survivor and why Shadow, their 75% chihuahua, has never worked a day in her life and proudly so. Then (11:40) the main part of this week's episode is a conversation between Dominic and Cara Daggett ( https://w...

Dominic and Cymene start off with a review of the new Apple TV Cli-Fi series Extrapolations especially its killer walruses and then recap a chat with German climate activist Luisa Neubauer and former US National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy about how civilizational change is coming, either by design or by disaster. Then [23:51] we are thrilled to have USC's Christina Dunbar-Hester join us on the...

Cymene and Dominic natter a bit about holiday misadventures and then (13:49) happily welcome Mike Degani (Cambridge U) to the podcast to talk about his new book, The City Electric (Duke UP 2022). We begin with how Mike became interested in electricity as an ethnographic object through experiencing power failures in Dar es Salaam. Then we talk about how electropolitics threads through various key m...

Cymene and Dominic relate tales from their harrowing weekend of having to deal with the absence of Henry Rollins in Black Flag and the presence of an active shooter down the block. Then (15:35) we welcome Harvard's own Victor Seow to the podcast to discuss his remarkable book, Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia (U Chicago Press, 2022). We start with how studying labor migration...

Cymene and Dominic talk about hauling ice, champagne socialism and the mystery of Viennetta cakes on this week's intro. Then (16:07) we are joined by Troy Vettese, an environmental historian, and Drew Pendergrass, an environmental engineer, to talk about their bold and imaginative new book, Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics (Verso 2022, h...

Dominic and Cymene begin this week's episode with a medley of Hawaiian experiences, everything from 25-foot waves to energy utopias to whether watching Sharknado can actually help someone overcome fear of sharks. Then, we welcome to the podcast the brilliant Dr. Daphina Misiedjan from Erasmus University Rotterdam ( https://www.eur.nl/en/people/daphina-misiedjan ) to help us better understand the e...

Dominic and Cymene share first impressions of Honolulu and query why there are chickens everywhere. Then (16:50) we are thrilled to welcome economist Timothée Parrique ( https://timotheeparrique.com @timparrique) to the podcast to bring us up to speed with the latest news from ecological economics and its signature degrowth paradigm. We start with the basics. There's more talk about degrowth now t...