143 - Graeme Macdonald

Cultures of Energy

Cymene and Dominic answer the timeless surrealist question, can raisins function as bait, on this week’s podcast. We then (9:20) welcome to the podcast Scotland’s finest son, Graeme Macdonald (currently on loan to Warwick) who explains first of all that he had nothing to do with the making of couscous sandwiches at Petrocultures 2018. But he does cop to enjoying very much working together with Janet Stewart and Rhys Williams on bringing that event to fruition. We then move on to more serious matters and Graeme tells us why he thinks interest in petrocultures is growing and how the energy humanities relate to the environmental humanities more broadly. That leads us to the entanglement of oil and modern fiction, whether there are different petrofictions in different places around the world, and if we need a new romanticism for the era of renewables. We then turn to science fiction in Scotland and its connection to the many terraforming projects that have occurred there; we talk post-oil dystopian fictions, hollow earth narratives, peat bogs and carbon sequestration, and the tensions surrounding decarbonization and Scottish devolution in the UK. We close on climate imaginaries and whether the Global North has made any progress in conceiving of post-carbon democratic life. This episode is brought to you by Buckfast Tonic Wine, the official irresponsible beverage decision of the Cultures of Energy podcast. Consider having one for the ditch but nae prezh!