Oceanic irrealism. Danish petrofiction below the surface
This article ventures seaward to examine how two contemporary Danish novels paradoxically uses irrealist features to make visible the existent opacity and mythology of oil.
Special issue
The coordinators of the Special issue section offer readers a series of additional contributions to shed light on a common topic. They combine rigor and readability in an effort to bring historical research to life, as well as to provide a wider audience with the keys needed to understand the past and through it—whether directly or indirectly—the present.
The ubiquity of Royal Dutch Shell in the Netherlands as a case of banal petroculture
In 1995 Michael Billig introduced the term ‘banal nationalism’ to refer to those representations and reproductions of the nation which are as ubiquitous as they tend to go unnoticed.
Pervasive extractivism: Petroculture and sedimented histories in Sandrine Bessora’s Petroleum
The aim of this paper is twofold, first to explore how Sandrine Bessora’s novel Petroleum (2004) engages with the Medea intertext, and thus inserting itself in a specific literary filiation, addresses the writing of history.
Love and care in 2021: Women-led community activism towards oil refining on St. Croix, US Virgin Islands
From 1966 to 2012, oil companies operated a massive refinery on the Island of St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands (USVI).
Hydrocarbons and human resources: histories of labor, social relations, and industrial culture in the oil and gas industry
Human labor and knowledge has been central to the ability of companies and states to extract and produce energy. Workers, engineers, technocrats, and managers have played a central role in the development of the hydrocarbon industry.
Labour and social protection in the Romanian oil industry during the Interwar
This paper analyses employee needs in the Romanian oil industry during the interwar period. Three distinct periods will be explored: the aftermath of the First World War, the economic crisis of 1929-1933, and the outbreak of the Second World War.
Manual and Electrical Energies in the Visualisation of “Electrical Calcutta”, c. 1890-1925
Through examinations of domestic servants in electrical advertisements and writings this article looks at the imaginations and realities of visions of an “Electrical Calcutta” at the turn of the twentieth century.
Out of the reach of cattle? Animal subjectivities shaping the electrical cultures of British livestock farming in the second half of the 20th C.
This paper explores the use of electricity in 20th-century British farming, as captured in the agricultural press, advisory literature, films and specialist publications intended for the farming community.