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Jennifer Wenzel, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature and of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University, will present "Between Petro-Magic and Pedestrian."
Jennifer Wenzel, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature and of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University, will present "Between Petro-Magic and Pedestrian."
In this talk, Jennifer Wenzel suggests that the impasse of the present is determined not only by petro-magic—fairy-tale promises of wealth without work—but also by a failure of the imagination in not reckoning with the transition from muscular energy to mineral energy. Professor Wenzel looks beyond portrayals of oil extraction in literature from the Niger Delta—the focus of her previous work—to examine the broader role of petro-magic in the fossil-fueled imaginary and the lived experience of hydrocarbon modernity. Petro-magic is effectively disenchanted when the make-believe world of the fossil fuel economy is normalized, rebalancing energy and benefits. She reflects upon "the pedestrian," both in terms of the ordinary inertia of taking-magic-for-granted and in terms of an alternative embodied politics of walking. Can we chip away at the impasse one step at a time?
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Contact: humcentr@fas.harvard.edu