255 - Accelerant (feat. Ciruce Mohavedi-Lankarani)
Cultures of Energy
Dominic and Cymene eat crepes, share limericks and wonder whether dogs and rabbits might hold the secret to world peace on this week’s episode. Then (13:09) we welcome to the pod to talk about his new book newly out from Stanford U Press. We begin with how natural gas overcame its second-class status among the hydrocarbons to become the central pillar of Iranian national development strategies in the middle of the 20th century. We talk about how the material density and volatility of gas impacted efforts at building infrastructure, how Iran had to navigate the imperial ambitions of...
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254 - Shrinking Cities (feat. Fernando Ortiz-Moya)
Cultures of Energy
Cymene and Dominic talk about shrinky dinks, tiny sweaters, miniaturized submarines and during this week’s intro segment. Then (12:12) we welcome to the conversation to talk about his excellent new book : Regenerating Shrinking Cities from the Ground Up (U California Press, 2026). Fernando explains his lifelong fascination with cities with dwindling populations and why urban shrinkage doesn’t always mean decline. We move from there to talking about the hegemony of growth thinking in urbanism and why top-down planning for urban renewal so often fails to produce the effects intended. We...
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253 - Disappearing Waste (feat. Dan Sosna)
Cultures of Energy
Dominic and Cymene marvel at April snow and the ice cream stylings of Ben and Jerry. Then (8:28) we welcome to the podcast to discuss his new book, (Berghahn, 2026). We dive into his background in archaeology and what attracted him to landfill in the first place, how wastepicking can be viewed as a practice of “quiet sustainability”, and the differences between circular economy as a bureaucratic project and an embodied project. We move from there to tech futurism’s genocidal quality, what the effort to disappear waste really means and why landfill spaces have exhibited haunted,...
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252 - Southern Anthropocenes (feat. Casper Bruun Jensen)
Cultures of Energy
Cymene and Dominic discuss what happened when ten art school kids were given a disney princess baking challenge on this week’s episode of the podcast. Then (14:48) we welcome Casper Bruun Jensen to the pod to talk about a new collaboration and book project he organized called (Routledge, 2026). We begin with the Anthropocene concept and why Casper and his collaborators felt it was important to pluralize it. We turn from there to talking pluriversal politics, cosmopolitical openings, utopias, the need to take care of the possible and what tales of tomorrow we need to tell today. Check out...
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251 - Deep Listening (feat. Zina Saro-Wiwa)
Cultures of Energy
Cymene and Dominic lament what is happening in Iran and explore what kinds of dogs they would be on this episode of the podcast. Then (15:47) we welcome to the podcast the amazing multitalented multimedia artist to talk about her work. We begin with her father Ken Saro-Wiwa’s courageous activism on behalf of the Ogoni people and tragic death at the hands of Nigeria’s Abacha dictatorship. We then talk about her career in journalism and how coming to terms with the past eventually propelled her toward art. We turn from there to her creative practice. Zina explains to us what she means by...
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250 - Energy Democracy (feat. Nikki Luke)
Cultures of Energy
Dominic and Cymene celebrate the 250th episode of the podcast with tales of steamy avian encounter. And then (16:14) we welcome Nikki Luke to the podcast, author of the brand-new book (MIT Press, 2026). We start with what energy democracy means to Nikki in the context of her work on utility regulation and then move to her case study of the famously recalcitrant utility, Georgia Power, and how the history of electricity in the American South has long been entangled with white supremacist politics. We talk about the politics of setting electricity rates, how and why investor-owned utilities...
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249 - Weathering (feat. Astrida Neimanis and Jennifer Mae Hamilton)
Cultures of Energy
Dominic and Cymene talk about their Cathostant (or is it Protelic?) families in this week’s intro segment. And then (11:59) we are thrilled to be joined by and to discuss their work as the Weathering Collective, especially their inspiring new book (Bloomsbury, 2026). We begin with their collaborative relationship, how it began and has evolved over the past decade, and how they learned to balance theory and practice together. We discuss how both climate science and feminist theory are best considered as works in progress and then turn to weather and why its capacity to attune to constant...
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248 - Maintenance & Repair (feat. Jérôme Denis & David Pontille)
Cultures of Energy
Cymene and Dominic share pirate tales from the Sundance Film Festival and reimagine Heated Rivalry with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk as the lead lovers. Then (15:34) we welcome and to the podcast to discuss not one but two new books, (Wiley, 2025) and (MIT Press, 2025). We begin with how they became interested in the concept of fragility through their fieldwork with people responsible for maintaining and caring for infrastructure. From there, we turn toward the distinction between repair and maintenance and how their fieldwork led them to pay attention to attention as an aspect of the...
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247 - Feeding the Future (feat. Nicole Negowetti)
Cultures of Energy
We kick things off this week with a short but heartfelt celebration of the tenth anniversary of the podcast. Several friends—Geoff Bowker, Heather Davis, Imre Szeman, John Grzinich, Karen Pinkus and Tim Morton—drop in to share thoughts about what’s urgent to think and feel in energy and environmental humanities these days. Then (34:00) Cymene welcomes lawyer-scholar-activist to speak about her new book, (Georgtown U Press, 2026) and its spotlight on regenerative food practices and the role that communities worldwide are playing in transforming the global food system. Hang in there,...
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246 - Radioactive Governance (feat. Maxime Polleri)
Cultures of Energy
Happy 2026! It’s been quite a year so far and your co-hosts talk about their recent trip to Nicaragua and Shadow’s reinvention as a fly assassin. Then (17:18) we welcome to the conversation to talk about his fascinating new book The Politics of Revitalization in Post-Fukushima Japan (NYU Press, 2025). We begin with the 2011 Fukushima earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster and the role that luck played in preventing 14 core meltdowns instead of the 3 that actually happened. From there, Maxime takes us into the center of his argument about the politics of post-disaster recovery in...
info_outlineThere be tales of two Sean Fields on this week’s podcast. Happily, we are only welcoming (8:56) the smart and accomplished Dr. Field to the podcast to talk about his pathbreaking new ethnography of oil and finance, Carbon Capital: Climate Change and the Ethics of Oil Investing (NYU Press, 2025). We begin with why it matters to understand the moral landscape and ethical values of oil investment. From there, the conversation evolves to include oil and Christianity, the intersection of value and values, why the oil industry “inhales capital” and how private equity firms helped US oil and gas industry explode in size. We dig into how both finance and oil discount the future, the moral philosophy of oil evangelist Alex Epstein and much, much more. Please listen and share! Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.