Cultures of Energy

Cultures of Energy brings writers, artists and scholars together to talk, think and feel their way into the Anthropocene. We cover serious issues like climate change, species extinction and energy transition. But we also try to confront seemingly huge and insurmountable problems with insight, creativity and laughter. We believe in the possibility of personal and cultural change. And we believe that the arts and humanities can help guide us toward a more sustainable future. Cultures of Energy is a Mingomena Media production. Co-hosts are @DominicBoyer and @CymeneHowe

Cultures of Energy is a science podcast hosted by Dominic Boyer and Cymene Howe, with 262 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Dominic Boyer and Cymene Howe hosts Cultures of Energy, a science show with 262 episodes published.

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  Cultures of Energy

  263 – Brokers of Power (feat. Conor Harrison)

  Sep 6, 202652 min

  Dominic and Cymene enjoy a confetti-free trip to Philadelphia on this special Labor Day edition of the podcast. To keep us company (12:24) we welcome Conor Harrison to the program to talk about his new book, Brokers of Power: The Financialization of the US Electricity System (U Minnesota Press, 2026). We start by discussing the variety of finance industry players operating in the energy sector and how their goals are not all the same. We delve into the deep history of energy and finance and how things started to get pretty symbiotic starting in the 1990s. Turning to the present, Conor explains the incentives that utilities have to hold on to fossil fuel plants and how finance has managed the decline (or not) of coal generation. We get into the crypto and data center boom in electricity demand, why consumer prices are soaring, and finance's role in the rise and fall of ESG investing. Finally, Conor explains why he thinks a strong return to public power and investor-owned utilities would accelerate and improve the energy transition. Hug a worker today everyone. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.

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  Cultures of Energy

  262 - Petroforms (feat. Helen Kapstein)

  Aug 23, 202659 min

  Cymene recounts her visit to The Rocky Horror Picture Show and we wonder whether students can be convinced that academic writing will improve their social lives. Then (17:30) we sit down with the marvelous Helen Kapstein to talk about her new book Petroforms : Oil and the Shaping of Nigerian Aesthetics (West Virginia UP, 2025). We begin with how oil seeks to evade both the commodity form and aesthetic forms, and how petrocriticism might respond. What is the true nature of our "blind spot" concerning oil in the global North and how does living on the front lines of extractivism counteract such blindness? We talk about how petroforms shift across genres, highlighting petrofeminism and petrohorror as two particularly interesting genres to consider. We wrap talking about the problem of recovery from petroculture and the world after oil. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love! If you happen to be in Dresden this week for Petrocultures 2026 please drop by and say hello!

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  Cultures of Energy

  261 - Building Postcarbon Futures (feat. Billy Fleming)

  Aug 9, 20261h 18m

  The Queen and King of Jetlag recount tales of airplane toilets, surprise geckos and AI abominations on this week's episode. Then (16:32) Billy Fleming saves the podcast by joining us to talk about his marvelous new book, Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice and Energy Transitions (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2026). We start with the legacy of the New Deal and how what actually happened in the infrastructural boom of the FDR years is often misremembered. We move from there to talking about the optimal and necessary scales at which building postcarbon futures must proceed and how to balance bottom-up and top-down models and actions. We talk about the fetishization of efficiency and economization logics, the need for designs that serve multiple purposes at once, and why we must make hard choices today about what kinds of industry belong to our planetary future. We close talking about the case studies in the book that may help to inspire more bold experiments in postcarbon future-making and Billy's new project on recarbonization and the importance of managed decline . Hang in there, everyone, peace and love. Book credit: Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice, and Energy Transitions . By Billy Fleming. Edited by Jennifer Sigler. Designed by Cristian Ordóñez. 480 pages. Published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Distributed by Columbia University Press. How to order it: CUP: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/building-postcarbon-futures/9781558444560/ Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/beta-search?keywords=978-1558444560 Amazon: https://a.co/d/0cH9KxsB Other links discussed in the conversation: Climate and Community Institute: https://climateandcommunity.org/ Living New Deal: https://livingnewdeal.org/ Cristian Ordonez (book designer): https://studio.cristianordonez.com/ Book Tour/Events (schedule is updated regularly): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gh6taC3BlR6EfoAjD-255rdCYwv7T78XUXcThPOUah0/edit?usp=sharing

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  Cultures of Energy

  260 - Pipeline Cinema (feat. Mona Damluji)

  Jul 26, 202658 min

  Your cohosts' electric summer adventure has brought them to Thailand! Dominic wonders if he will be allowed to eat Thai spicy food and Cymene reports about feeding baby elephants. Then (13:44) we welcome Mona Damluji to the podcast to discuss her new book, Pipeline Cinema: The Cultural Infrastructure of Oil Extraction in Iran and Iraq (U California Press, 2025) av ailable as open access and paperback . We begin with how Mona discovered her own great grandfather in the archive of oil's cultural workers. Then we turn to the entangled histories of Iran, Iraq and Anglo-American petroimperialism. Mona tells us about how the physical infrastructure of oil impacted the cultural infrastructure of filmmaking in the region, how the oil industry sought to make itself inevitable to the story of modernization, the life stories of the culture workers themselves and much, much more. We close with a discussion of the enduring allure of petromodernity. Check out Sanaz Sohrabi's incredible films here: https://www.sanaz-sohrabi.com/ . And please also check out Mona's children's books on collective action, war and displacement , Together and I Want You to Know . Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.

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  Cultures of Energy

  259 - Petrostates (feat. Ryan Cecil Jobson)

  Jul 13, 202653 min

  The China adventure continues for your two co-hosts. Cymene and Dominic report from Zhangzhou, a small city of five million in Fujian province, and talk about party hotel life and what might have been the first energy humanities workshop in the country. And then (9:02) we welcome Ryan Cecil Jobson to the podcast to discuss his groundbreaking book, The Petro-State Masquerade : Oil, Sovereignty, and Power in Trinidad and Tobago (U Chicago Press, 2024). We begin with how petrostates seek to assert their permanence even in times of obvious crises and Ryan's insights into how the performance of permanence becomes all-powerful in maintaining petrostate legitimacy. We move from there to exploring the significance of Caribbean culture in T&T fossil fuels, thinking about the tension between the state masquerade and the people's masquerade, and the historical transition from plantation labor to oil field labor. We close talking about petronostalgia, speculative sovereignty, efforts in T&T to unlock ultradeepwater drilling, and the importance of "dwelling in the hyphen" when it comes to nation-states and petro-states. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.

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