Out Now
Cold Water Oil: Offshore Petroleum Cultures
Edited by Fiona Polack and Danine Farquharson (Routledge, 2022)
The edited collection includes my chapter, “Contested and Emergent Futures,” written during my postdoctoral fellowship.
In “Contested and Emergent Futures: Film and energy regimes of the Newfoundland offshore,” I analyze a collection of sponsored and amateur films about offshore oil from the 1980s as sites of future-making, to ask how energy imaginaries past can help scholars and activists work towards collective survival in today’s climate crisis.
Solarities: Seeking Energy Justice
Collaboratively written by members of the After Oil Collective (including myself), edited by Ayesha Vemuri and Darin Barney (University of Minnesota Press, 2022).
From the publisher’s website:
“Solarities considers the possibilities of organizing societies and economies around solar energy, and the challenges of a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels. Far from presenting solarity as a utopian solution to the climate crisis, it critically examines the ambiguous potentials of solarities: plural, situated, and often contradictory.
Written by a diverse collective of activists, scholars, and practitioners, the authors consider the material and infrastructural dimensions of solar power, the decolonial and feminist promises of decentralized energy, solarian relations with more-than-human kin, and the problem of oppressive and weaponized solarities. Solarities imagines—and demands—possibilities for energy justice in this transition.”
Other Recent Publications
Articles and Book Chapters
“Postcards from Yiddishland: Amateur Filmmaking and Vernacular Yiddish Culture,” in Global Perspectives on Amateur Film Histories and Cultures. Edited by Masha Salazkina and Enrique Fibla-Gutiérrez (Indiana University Press, 2021).
“From Labrador to Leipzig: Film and Infrastructures Along the Fur Trail,” Canadian Journal of Communications 46, no. 2 (April 2021): 291-314. Included in special issue on Materials and Media of Infrastructure, edited by Aleksandra Kaminska and Rafico Ruiz.
“Scientific Visions: Resource Extraction and the Colonial Impulse in Canadian Popular Science Films,” Canadian Journal of Film Studies / Revue canadienne d’études cinématographiques 28, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 1-24. Awarded the 2020 Peter Morris Prize from CJFS and the Film Studies Association of Canada.
“Fuelling the Nation: Imaginaries of Western Oil in Canadian Nontheatrical Film,” Canadian Journal of Communication 43, no. 1 (2018): 111-125. Included in special issue Communicating Power: Energy, Canada, and the Field(s) of Communication, edited by Shane Gunster, Imre Szeman, Matthew Greaves, and Robert Neubauer.
“Land in Revolt: Eco-criticism and the Roots of Resistance,” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 11, no. 3 (2018): 248-273.
Edited Journal Issues
“Critical and Creative Engagements with Petro-Media,” Special issue of Imaginations: Revue d’études interculturelles de l’image/Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies 13, no. 1 (June 14, 2022). Guest edited with Emily Roehl.
“Humorous Disruptions: Laughter and Technologies of Disruptions in Feminist Film and Media,” Special issue of Synoptique: An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies 5, no. 1 (2016). Guest edited with Desirée de Jesús, Julia Huggins, Tess McClernon, and Vanessa Meyer.
Research Creation, Blog Posts, and Educational Resources
“The Ways We Work.” Three-part series of blog posts on sustainable academia and energy justice. Co-written with Anne Pasek and Kate Elliot, published on Historians for Future Blog:
Part 1: “Oily Entanglements” (January 28, 2022)
Part 2: “Extractivism in the University” (April 1, 2022)
Part 3: “Working Solutions to Unsustainable Academia” (May 20, 2022)
Podcast episode on “Teaching about Oil through Arts, Film, and Literature” recorded with Brent Ryan Bellamy and Moritz Ingwersen. Teachin’ Books Podcast, hosted by Jessica McDonald (January 11, 2022).
“Teaching North American Petrocultures in Germany: Experiments in Collaborative Pedagogy,” Correspondences: A Forum for the Environment (September 16, 2021). Blog post written with Brent Ryan Bellamy and Moritz Ingwersen.
“Energy Amphitheatre: St. John’s Harbour.” ArcGIS StoryMap created with Fiona Polack, Danine Farquharson, and Dean Bavington, 2020.
“Reading Speculative Futures in a Post-Truth World,” The Goose: A Journal of Arts, Environment, and Culture in Canada 16, no. 1, article 27 (2017): 1-4.
“Speculative Futures.” Resource toolkit and classroom guide for The Shore Line Project, an interactive documentary directed by Elizabeth Miller, 2017.