How can we imagine a transition to new energy sources? Join us for a lecture by Professor Imre Szeman (University of Alberta) on the way interdisciplinary perspectives can inform our understanding of energy uses and forms. Drawing from his work in the field of Energy Humanities, Professor Szeman will explore the social, cultural, and political changes needed to make possible a full-scale transition from fossil fuels to new forms of energy.

After Oil 

Tuesday, November 15, 2016, 3 pm at 228 Battelle-Tompkins Hall

About our speaker

Imre Szeman is Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies and Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, and Adjunct Professor of interdisciplinary Studies at OCAD University. He conducts research on and teaches in the areas of energy and environmental studies, literary and cultural theory, social and political philosophy (esp. 19th and 20th left theory, globalization and nationalism), and Canadian studies. Szeman is the recipient of the John Polanyi Prize in Literature (2000), the Petro-Canada Young Innovator Award (2003), the Scotiabank-AUCC Award for Excellence in Internationalization (2004), an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (2005-7), the President’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision at McMaster University (2008), a Killam Annual Professorship (2013), and the J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Excellence in Research (2015), the U of Alberta’s most prestigious research award that recognizes research excellence in humanities, social sciences, law, education and fine arts. He is the founder of the Canadian Association of Cultural Studies and a founding member of the US Cultural Studies Association. He is currently finishing up work on On Empty: The Cultural Politics of Oil.

You can find out more about Imre Szeman on his website

Please Click on the link below for a full download of Imre Szeman’s book After Oil :

PDF: After_Oil

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Have a look at Imre Szeman’s books and articles:

A Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory offers a fresh perspective on both familiar and under-theorized questions and topics animating the field of contemporary critical and cultural theory. It provides a full account of the history and scope of the field, focusing on the most pressing questions and problems that occupy and impel contemporary theoretical discourse. Gathering together some of the most widely read and innovative theorists working today, this Companion offers thirty-nine essays designed to illuminate the topics that dominate theoretical debate today and, we anticipate, for some time to come. By framing its chapters around the problems and issues animating the field today, A Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory offers a theoretical framework within which crucial questions, traditions, approaches, and concepts in critical and cultural theory take on newly generative valences. Capturing the dynamism of contemporary theory, the essays collected in this book will provide a comprehensive account of the ways in which the study of literature and culture has been, and continues to be challenged and energized by critical and cultural theory.

Contemporary Marxist Theory: An Anthology brings together major texts in late twentieth century Marxist thought, focusing on work written during the past two decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It takes as its point of departure the strong sense that—contrary to rumours of its death in conjunction with the end of state socialism—the influence and impact of Marxist theory is today stronger than ever, and has become even more essential for understanding our historical conjuncture than during the Cold War. The crisis-ridden world produced by global capitalism requires theoretically sophisticated and critically sharp analyses of political and economic systems and structures, and of the social and cultural imaginaries which inflect and shape their formation. It is impossible to ignore the fact that the voices dominating critical and cultural theory in the past two decades have belonged to thinkers identified with the ideas of Marxist thought and its intellectual heritage. This book fills a significant gap in the contemporary world of ideas by showcasing an area of scholarly analysis whose impact on intellectual thought and political action will only grow in coming years.

Please click on the book title below to learn more about Imre Siezman’s works: