AMES3886

In 1992, the novelist Amitav Ghosh wondered why the "oil-encounter," the most significant, culture-altering development of the twentieth century, has not been narrativized. Twenty years later, in The Great Derangement, he concluded that our prevalent narrative forms are inadequate to narrate the slow catastrophe of climate change, simply because they are so implicated, even complicit, in the extractive logics of petromodernity.

This course explores our contemporary modernity of oil dependence through critical engagement with Middle Eastern cultural production. It postulates that to think about oil is not solely to think about derricks or spectacular spills or barrel prices, but about the basic narratives, fictions, and ideologies that underline our daily lives; that reading fictions (conceived broadly) is both a method and resource to map and critique ways in which the world's resources are unevenly produced, extracted, and exploited on a global-local scale; and that humanistic inquiry can challenge the common assumption that existing energy systems are inevitably necessary in modern life. Throughout the semester, the students will engage in critical readings of novels, films, and visual art that emerge from and react to the networked reality of an oil-addicted world. They will critically analyze the narrative forms and visual vocabularies through which the petro-industry has been depicted, as well as learn about the violent history of oil extraction and its environmental effects. Finally, they will consider how creative works allow us to imagine and promote alternative and more sustainable energy futures.