How are spaces once imagined to be empty, vast, and mysterious transformed into something with material and cultural value? Two authors tackle this same question, one from the perspective of the seafloor, and one from Canada’s oil sands: key spaces where the meaning of sustainability is actively negotiated. Deepwater Alchemy: Extractive Mediation and the Taming of the Seafloor by Lisa Yin Han looks at oceanic media and shows how deepwater mediation is entangled in existential hopes and fears for our planetary future. Petroturfing: Refining Canadian Oil through Social Media by Jordan B. Kinder looks at how an increasingly influential network of pro-oil groups in Canada work to reform the public view of oil extraction as something socially, economically, and ecologically beneficial. Here, Lisa and Jordan are joined in conversation with Thomas Pringle.


Lisa Yin Yan is assistant professor of media studies at Pitzer College.

Jordan B. Kinder is assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Thomas Pringle is assistant professor of cinema and media studies at the University of Southern California. Pringle is co-author, with Gertrud Koch and Bernard Stiegler, of Machine.



REFERENCES:
Nature’s Metropolis / William Cronon
Ethical Oil / Ezra Levant
Tar Wars / Geo Takach
Sustaining Seas / eds. Elspeth Probyn, Kate Johnson, and Nancy Lee (referencing essay by Lesley Green)
Oceaning / Adam Fish
Animal Revolution / Ron Broglio
Zoe Todd, “Fossil Fuels and Fossil Kin: An Environmental Kin Study of Weaponised Fossil Kin and Alberta’s So-Called ‘Energy Resources Heritage,’” Antipode (2023)
After Oil Collective
Isabelle Stengers



Praise for Deepwater Alchemy:

“An essential contribution to the watery depths of the blue humanities.”
—Jennifer Gabrys

“Deepwater Alchemy tells a story vital to our present.”
—Stefan Helmreich



Praise for Petroturfing:

“A profound and necessary book.”
—Janet Walker

“Offers great insight into an underdeveloped aspect of the cultural study of energy.”
—Stephanie LeMenager

Extractive mediation, from the deep sea to oil culture

Red Gold: The Managed Extinction of the Giant Bluefin Tuna is a book that asks why so many big bluefin tuna have vanished from the Atlantic Ocean. Author Jen Telesca notes that the term “red gold” has emerged out of the exorbitant price her ruby-colored flesh commands on the global market; for reference, in January 2019, a 613-pound Pacific bluefin tuna sold at market in Tokyo for an astounding record of $3.1 million US dollars. To research this book, Telesca gained unparalleled access to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (also known as ICCAT) to show that the institution has faithfully executed the task assigned to it by international law: to fish as hard as possible to grow national economies. This interview between Telesca and editor Jason Weidemann was recorded in May 2020.

More about the book: http://z.umn.edu/redgold

A transcription of this conversation is available: z.umn.edu/t-redgold

Extractive mediation, from the deep sea to oil culture

University of Minnesota Press

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