Book contents
- American Literature in Transition, 1876–1910
- Nineteenth-Century American Literature in Transition
- American Literature in Transition, 1876–1910
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Series Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Transitive States
- Part II Post-Reconstruction Aesthetics
- Part III Old Materialisms
- Chapter 11 Oil
- Chapter 12 Waste
- Chapter 13 Blood
- Chapter 14 Color
- Part IV Immanent Techniques
- Index
Chapter 11 - Oil
from Part III - Old Materialisms
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 August 2022
- American Literature in Transition, 1876–1910
- Nineteenth-Century American Literature in Transition
- American Literature in Transition, 1876–1910
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Series Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Transitive States
- Part II Post-Reconstruction Aesthetics
- Part III Old Materialisms
- Chapter 11 Oil
- Chapter 12 Waste
- Chapter 13 Blood
- Chapter 14 Color
- Part IV Immanent Techniques
- Index
Summary
In an effort to confront climate change and other crises of extractive capitalism, scholars of US literature are turning their analytical tools toward an area of study previously dominated by scientists and policy makers: energy. Petroleum, coal, nuclear energy, whale oil, wood, lard, and myriad other energy sources are among the subjects now under study by the emerging field of the energy humanities. The nineteenth century holds a special place in the study of energy, since it was at this time that, according to Cara New Daggett, the concept of “energy” emerged in the form in which it is widely understood in the twenty-first century. In the nineteenth century, the term “energy” came to refer both to fuel sources like oil or coal and to the concept of work itself. The “birth of energy” came about both in response to and because of the advent of intensive fossil fuel consumption in Great Britain and the United States that began in the nineteenth century and has accelerated unabated and spread worldwide, albeit unevenly, ever since.
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- American Literature in Transition, 1876–1910 , pp. 215 - 230Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022