179 - Nicole Starosielski

Cultures of Energy

On this week’s pod, we firstly recall the happy days of After Oil School 2: Solarity. Then (14:31) your co-hosts share their conversation with the amazing Nicole “NicStar” Starosielski (NYU) about about her fascinating new book project Media Hot and Cold,which offers a deep dive into all things thermocultural. We talk with Nicole about how her earlier work on undersea cables led to a broader interest in temperature as a medium and mode of communication. We talk about the importance of queering McLuhan and moving toward more feminist and antiracist approaches to media. We chat about thermal sexism and the rise of thermal personalization under neoliberalism, thermal violence and the spread of sweatboxes, and her work to develop a non-extractive metallurgical method of analysis. We turn from there to practices of sunlight and why Nicole was inspired to think about solarity via her work as a farmer. We close on the new book series she is editing with Stacy Alaimo, Elements (for Duke U Press). Check it out at: https://www.dukeupress.edu/books/browse/by-series/series-detail?IdNumber=4219856 PS A big COE pod shoutout to the organizers of Solarity and the Canadian Centre for Architecture for making this week’s episode possible!! PPS If you are thinking of going to the AAS meetings in Canberra this December please consider submitting a paper to the “It’s Elemental” panel that we are doing together with the magnificent Tim Neale. More information here: (https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/aas2019/p/8184)