Fuel: A Speculative Dictionary

145 Pages·2016·3.185 MB·English

by  Karen Pinkus

FUE L
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Cary Wolfe, Series Editor
39 Fuel: A Speculative Dictionary
Karen Pinkus
38 What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right
Questions?
Vinciane Despret
37 Manifestly Haraway
Donna J. Haraway
36 Neofinalism
Raymond Ruyer
35 Inanimation: Theories of Inorganic Life
David Wills
34 All Thoughts Are Equal: Laruelle and Nonhuman
Philosophy
John Ó Maoilearca
33 Necromedia
Marcel O’Gorman
32 The Intellective Space: Thinking beyond Cognition
Laurent Dubreuil
31 Laruelle: Against the Digital
Alexander R. Galloway
30 The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism
Steven Shaviro
29 Neocybernetics and Narrative
Bruce Clarke
28 Cinders
Jacques Derrida
27 Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of
the World
Timothy Morton
(continued on page 135)
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F U E L
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B
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A SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY
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Karen Pinkus
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University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis • London
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The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges
financial assistance for the publication of this book from the
Hull Memorial Publication Fund of Cornell University.
Copyright 2016 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pinkus, Karen, author.
Title: Fuel : a speculative dictionary / Karen Pinkus.
Description: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2016. | Series:
Posthumanities ; 39 | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016020934 (print) | ISBN 978-0-8166-9997-1 (hc) |
ISBN 978-0-8166-9998-8 (pb)
Subjects: LCSH: Fuel—Philosophy—Dictionaries. | Power
resources—Philosophy—Dictionaries. | Power (Philosophy) in
literature—Dictionaries.
Classification: LCC TP316 (print) | DDC 662.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016020934
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Contents
Acknowledgments / vii
FUEL: A Speculative Dictionary / 1
Notes / 117
Bibliography / 129
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Acknowledgments
Years ago my application to the University of Southern California Provost’s
Future Fuels and Energy Initiative was met with a generous grant— much to
my surprise. Without this spark I would surely never have embarked on this
project, even though it is much changed since that first proposal. The USC
College deans also provided support, including an award for a fantastic
undergraduate research assistant, JoJo Marshall (now at The Nature Con-
servancy). Many colleagues, including Jennifer Wolch, Michael Quick, and
David Bottjer, encouraged me in what were early days for humanists studying
climate change. At Cornell University, I am especially indebted to Tim Mur-
ray and Tim Campbell, among many others. A fellowship from the National
Humanities Centre in Canberra, Australia, offered me time and space to
make leaps ahead. I am thankful to the director, Debjany Ganguly, and for
the stimulating conversations with my fellow fellows. Audiences at Rice Uni-
versity, Rens selaer Polytechnic Institute, New York University, the Istituto
Svizzero of Rome, Ohio University, and elsewhere gave me much needed
feedback. For kind invitations I am most grateful to Peter Friedl, Marina
Peterson, Kristin Ross, and James Wilcox. Caroline Levander and Dominic
Boyer at Rice facilitated a semester-l ong visit at the Center for Energy and
Environmental Research in the Human Sciences. It was the perfect setting to
put the finishing touches on this book as I explored future research. Mat-
thew Schneider-Mayerson, Derek Woods, and many other friends made it
a truly magical time. Beth Ahner, Vincent Bruyère, Gökçe Günel, Adeline
Putras-Jones, Allan Stoekl, Imre Szeman, Daniel Tiffany, and Maria White-
man provided advice and support at different moments. Cary Wolfe and
Doug Armato of the University of Minnesota Press—you are amazing!
vii
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viii / Acknowledgments
And as always . . . Richard Block, Roberto Diaz, Peggy Kamuf, Annamaria
Moiso, Pani Norindr, Renzo Ovan, Sabrina Ovan, Daniel Pinkus, Deborah
Pinkus, Tommaso Pomilio, John David Rhodes, Hilary Schor, Joy Sleeman,
and Bernard Yenelouis. I write with the fondest memories of Miguel Ángel
Balsa and Maurizio Giuffredi. Bob Kaufman has put up with my incessant,
anxious chatter about climate change... for eons and with no end in sight.
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F U E L
A SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY
Air
A dream: It is September 19, 1783. You are inside the palace of Versailles
along with the court (including Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette). Perhaps
you establish your location there by glancing at yourself in a mirror in the
great hall— as a mise-e n- abyme. Or is this too much of a cliché? Perhaps you
are dressed in period costume. Or maybe an anachronistic Emma Peel– style
aerodynamic flight suit designed for maximum mobility. Or both, in the way
that dreams allow. You leave the palace and move into the garden just at the
moment that the Montgolfier brothers have finished all of the processes
associated with heating air. You breathe in: there is no residual smoke odor.
The Montgolfiers are just lifting off, accompanied by several farm animals.
Along with the court—o blivious to the preparatory energy-i ntensive stages—
you marvel as the balloon floats upward and then comes back down safely
(no animals are harmed in this experiment). Or maybe you are in the basket.
Or simultaneously watching from below and floating upward.
Time to wake up.
Air = Nothing
The dream of generating energy from nothing is nothing new. What if we
could power our world with free, clean, unlimited, unmetered air? But I have
already used two terms— energy and power— that imply systems. Energy is
the fundamental ability to do work. Power is the rate at which energy is used.
Fuels, as I hope to distinguish them from systems of energy, are potentiali-
ties— a vexing term that I will revisit at various points— perhaps flowing or
trapped in rock, perhaps gaseous and invisible, slippery or noxious, not yet
rigidified forms of power. Perhaps already discovered, monetized, projected
1
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