Petrocultures 2026: Situating Energy – an international conference on the Energy Humanities at TU Dresden

Energy is culture. It shapes how societies organize everyday life, understand progress, distribute power and resources, and negotiate their relationship with the natural world. Today's energy transition is unfolding against the backdrop of escalating ecological crises, the rapidly growing energy demands of digital technologies, geopolitical conflicts over critical resources, the resurgence of authoritarianism, and persistent global inequalities. The challenges it poses are therefore not merely technical, but also concern social identities, cultural relationships, historical transformations, and the ways societies imagine and make sense of the world.

With the aim of examining these societal dimensions of energy and energy transitions, TU Dresden will host the latest edition of the Petrocultures conference series from August 26–28, the leading international forum for the rapidly expanding field of the Energy Humanities. Under the title Petrocultures 2026: Situating Energy, the conference will bring together more than 200 international scholars from the humanities and social sciences whose research explores the cultural, social, and political dimensions of energy and resource cultures, as well as the power relations and spatial orders they produce. Petrocultures 2026 situates energy within its geographical, material, historical, cultural, social, and political relations, offering a multidimensional understanding of energy transitions and the challenges of socio-ecological transformation. Dresden and its surrounding region provide a paradigmatic setting for these discussions. The region exemplifies how different forms of energy production and use—from coal and uranium to hydropower, wind, and solar energy, alongside the rapidly growing energy demands of the digital economy—are deeply intertwined with broader questions of social transformation, justice, and sustainability. A central objective of the conference is to place regional conversations in dialogue with international perspectives. The event is organized in connection with the overarching theme of the third funding phase of the Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden, "Energy Cultures in Transition" (2027–2030).

Organization:
Moritz Ingwersen, Anja Lind, Susann Wagenknecht, Michaela Büsse, Özgün Eylül Isçen
Chair of North American Literature and Future Studies
Chair of Micro-Sociology and Technosocial Interaction
Chair of Digital Cultures
Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden

Interested attendees are invited to register by sending a brief email to the conference team: .

Further information and details: http://petrocultures2026.com/

KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS

August 26, 11:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ABS E11 | TUD
Jordan B. Kinder (NYU Steinhardt)
“Situating the Situations of Energy: Doing Energy Humanities in Non-Renewable Times”

August 27, 4:00–5:30 p.m. ABS E11 | TUD
Kathryn Yusoff (Queen Mary University of London)
“Geocide: Colonial Earth Rubrics and Anti-Imperial Geopower”

August 28, 11:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ABS E11 | TUD
Alexander Dunlap (Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability)
“Confronting the ‘Green’ in the Energy-Extraction Nexus: Moving Beyond Energy Binaries for Rigorous Research & Political Action”

SPECIAL EVENTS

August 25, 7:00 p.m. | Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden
Drill, Baby, Drill! A Conversation on Petro-Masculinity with Cara New Daggett
Moderator: Moritz Ingwersen (TUD)
https://shop.dhmd.de/veranstaltungen/drill-baby-drill

August 26, 7:00 p.m. | Zentralkino Dresden
Film Screening: Situating Energy through Film
Mareike Bernien & Alex Gerbaulet (Sonne unter Tage, 2022, 39 min)
Su Yu Hsin (Sunshine-belt Machine, 2026, 14 min)
Moderator: Michaela Büsse (TUD)