259 - Petrostates (feat. Ryan Cecil Jobson)
Cultures of Energy
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 to the podcast to discuss his groundbreaking book, : 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...
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258 - Smog (feat. Ann Carlson)
Cultures of Energy
Cymene and Dominic report from the first week of their trip to China. And then (11:22) we welcome legal scholar to the podcast to talk to us about battling smog in one of our favorite cities, Los Angeles. Ann has just published a new book, (U California Press, 2026) that tells the remarkable and often inspiring story of how Los Angeles radically improved its air quality. We begin with a reminder of how bad things once were in LA and why. Then we discuss the scientists who helped pinpoint the origins of smog (with an assist from the science of the pineapple of all things) and the oil and...
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257 - The Alibi of Capital (feat. Timothy Mitchell)
Cultures of Energy
It’s World Cup season and so your co-hosts deliver their first ever sports corner. And then (9:38) drum roll please, we welcome the one and only Tim Mitchell back to the podcast to talk about his latest masterpiece, How We Broke the Earth to Steal the Future on the Promise of a Better Tomorrow (Verso, 2026). We start with Tim’s model of the shareholder corporation as a machine built to produce present wealth at the expense of future encumbrances. Encumbering the future is also key to how Tim is rethinking the dynamics of economic growth since his earlier work, Carbon Democracy. We talk...
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256 - Land Art Generator (feat. Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian)
Cultures of Energy
Cymene goes shopping with Beyoncé in this episode’s dream sequence and if that weren’t dreamy enough your co-hosts also break down the new film, Backrooms. Then (17:01) we welcome and to the podcast to talk about their amazing Land Art Generator Initiative (), a remarkable effort to surface the potential beauty of renewable energy. As a unique kind of public art enterprise, LAGI has been holding design competitions across the world since 2010. We talk about their mission to help inspire more ecologically and socially attuned modes of futurism and how land art can seed visions of better...
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255 - Accelerant (feat. Ciruce Movahedi-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...
info_outlineCymene and Dominic report from the first week of their trip to China. And then (11:22) we welcome legal scholar Ann Carlson to the podcast to talk to us about battling smog in one of our favorite cities, Los Angeles. Ann has just published a new book, Smog and Sunshine (U California Press, 2026) that tells the remarkable and often inspiring story of how Los Angeles radically improved its air quality. We begin with a reminder of how bad things once were in LA and why. Then we discuss the scientists who helped pinpoint the origins of smog (with an assist from the science of the pineapple of all things) and the oil and automobile industry which tried to suppress the science and deny, diminish and delay action. We turn to comparing the environmental challenges that smog and anthropogenic greenhouse gases pose. Finally, we round things out by examining political polarization around climate action and the importance of government action and attribution science to climate mitigation going forward. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.