Free Daily Podcast Summary
Cultures of Energy: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Dominic Boyer
Cultures of Energy brings writers, artists and scholars together to talk, think and feel their way into the Anthropocene. We cover serious issues like climate change, species extinction and energy transition. But we also try to confront seemingly huge and insurmountable problems with insight, creativity and laughter. We believe in the possibility of personal and cultural change. And we believe that the arts and humanities can help guide us toward a more sustainable future. Cultures of Energy is a Mingomena Media production. Co-hosts are @DominicBoyer and @CymeneHowe
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 2 weeks ago51 min
263 – Brokers of Power (feat. Conor Harrison)
Dominic and Cymene enjoy a confetti-free trip to Philadelphia on this special Labor Day edition of the podcast. To keep us company we welcome Conor Harrison to the program to talk about his new book, Brokers of Power: The Financialization of the US Electricity System (U Minnesota Press, 2026). We start by discussing the variety of finance industry players operating in the energy sector and how their goals are not all the same. We delve into the deep history of energy and finance and how things started to get pretty symbiotic starting in the 1990s. Turning to the present, Conor explains the incentives that utilities have to hold on to fossil fuel plants and how finance has managed the decline (or not) of coal generation. We get into the crypto and data center boom in electricity demand, why consumer prices are soaring, and finance's role in the rise and fall of ESG investing. Finally, Conor explains why he thinks a strong return to public power and investor-owned utilities would accelerate and improve the energy transition. Hug a worker today everyone. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
- 4 weeks ago59 min
262 - Petroforms (feat. Helen Kapstein)
Cymene recounts her visit to The Rocky Horror Picture Show and we wonder whether students can be convinced that academic writing will improve their social lives. Then we sit down with the marvelous Helen Kapstein to talk about her new book Petroforms: Oil and the Shaping of Nigerian Aesthetics (West Virginia UP, 2025). We begin with how oil seeks to evade both the commodity form and aesthetic forms, and how petrocriticism might respond. What is the true nature of our "blind spot" concerning oil in the global North and how does living on the front lines of extractivism counteract such blindness? We talk about how petroforms shift across genres, highlighting petrofeminism and petrohorror as two particularly interesting genres to consider. We wrap talking about the problem of recovery from petroculture and the world after oil. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love! If you happen to be in Dresden this week for Petrocultures 2026 please drop by and say hello!
- Aug 9, 20261h 18m
261 - Building Postcarbon Futures (feat. Billy Fleming)
The Queen and King of Jetlag recount tales of airplane toilets, surprise geckos and AI abominations on this week's episode. Then Billy Fleming saves the podcast by joining us to talk about his marvelous new book, Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice and Energy Transitions (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2026). We start with the legacy of the New Deal and how what actually happened in the infrastructural boom of the FDR years is often misremembered. We move from there to talking about the optimal and necessary scales at which building postcarbon futures must proceed and how to balance bottom-up and top-down models and actions. We talk about the fetishization of efficiency and economization logics, the need for designs that serve multiple purposes at once, and why we must make hard choices today about what kinds of industry belong to our planetary future. We close talking about the case studies in the book that may help to inspire more bold experiments in postcarbon future-making and Billy's new project on recarbonization and the importance of managed decline. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love. Book credit: Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice, and Energy Transitions. By Billy Fleming. Edited by Jennifer Sigler. Designed by Cristian Ordóñez. 480 pages. Published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Distributed by Columbia University Press. How to order it: CUP: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/building-postcarbon-futures/9781558444560/ Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/beta-search?keywords=978-1558444560 Amazon: https://a.co/d/0cH9KxsB Other links discussed in the conversation: Climate and Co
- Jul 26, 202657 min
260 - Pipeline Cinema (feat. Mona Damluji)
Your cohosts' electric summer adventure has brought them to Thailand! Dominic wonders if he will be allowed to eat Thai spicy food and Cymene reports about feeding baby elephants. Then we welcome Mona Damluji to the podcast to discuss her new book, Pipeline Cinema: The Cultural Infrastructure of Oil Extraction in Iran and Iraq (U California Press, 2025) available as open access and paperback. We begin with how Mona discovered her own great grandfather in the archive of oil's cultural workers. Then we turn to the entangled histories of Iran, Iraq and Anglo-American petroimperialism. Mona tells us about how the physical infrastructure of oil impacted the cultural infrastructure of filmmaking in the region, how the oil industry sought to make itself inevitable to the story of modernization, the life stories of the culture workers themselves and much, much more. We close with a discussion of the enduring allure of petromodernity. Check out Sanaz Sohrabi's incredible films here: https://www.sanaz-sohrabi.com/. And please also check out Mona's children's books on collective action, war and displacement, Together and I Want You to Know. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
- Jul 13, 202653 min
259 - Petrostates (feat. Ryan Cecil Jobson)
The China adventure continues for your two co-hosts. Cymene and Dominic report from Zhangzhou, a small city of five million in Fujian province, and talk about party hotel life and what might have been the first energy humanities workshop in the country. And then we welcome Ryan Cecil Jobson to the podcast to discuss his groundbreaking book, The Petro-State Masquerade: Oil, Sovereignty, and Power in Trinidad and Tobago (U Chicago Press, 2024). We begin with how petrostates seek to assert their permanence even in times of obvious crises and Ryan's insights into how the performance of permanence becomes all-powerful in maintaining petrostate legitimacy. We move from there to exploring the significance of Caribbean culture in T&T fossil fuels, thinking about the tension between the state masquerade and the people's masquerade, and the historical transition from plantation labor to oil field labor. We close talking about petronostalgia, speculative sovereignty, efforts in T&T to unlock ultradeepwater drilling, and the importance of "dwelling in the hyphen" when it comes to nation-states and petro-states. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
- Jun 27, 202649 min
258 - Smog (feat. Ann Carlson)
Cymene and Dominic report from the first week of their trip to China. And then we welcome legal scholar Ann Carlson to the podcast to talk to us about battling smog in one of our favorite cities, Los Angeles. Ann has just published a new book, Smog and Sunshine (U California Press, 2026) that tells the remarkable and often inspiring story of how Los Angeles radically improved its air quality. We begin with a reminder of how bad things once were in LA and why. Then we discuss the scientists who helped pinpoint the origins of smog (with an assist from the science of the pineapple of all things) and the oil and automobile industry which tried to suppress the science and deny, diminish and delay action. We turn to comparing the environmental challenges that smog and anthropogenic greenhouse gases pose. Finally, we round things out by examining political polarization around climate action and the importance of government action and attribution science to climate mitigation going forward. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
- Jun 15, 202654 min
257 - The Alibi of Capital (feat. Timothy Mitchell)
It's World Cup season and so your co-hosts deliver their first ever sports corner. And then drum roll please, we welcome the one and only Tim Mitchell back to the podcast to talk about his latest masterpiece, The Alibi of Capital: How We Broke the Earth to Steal the Future on the Promise of a Better Tomorrow (Verso, 2026). We start with Tim's model of the shareholder corporation as a machine built to produce present wealth at the expense of future encumbrances. Encumbering the future is also key to how Tim is rethinking the dynamics of economic growth since his earlier work, Carbon Democracy. We talk about how growth is really an alibi of capital, one that deeply misdirects language and knowledge and entraps us in a belief that capitalist growth delivers a public good. Tim argues that both the Industrial Revolution and Keynesianism can be better understood as strategic pivots within this long run process of capitalization and future capture. We turn from there to infrastructure as a strategy of capture via delay and deferral and the critical role that technology plays in promoting misunderstanding of our relationship to the future. Finally we turn toward the climate crisis and how it exemplifies the dynamics Tim outlines in the book. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
- Jun 1, 20261h 1m
256 - Land Art Generator (feat. Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian)
Cymene goes shopping with Beyoncé in this episode's dream sequence and if that weren't dreamy enough your co-hosts also break down the new film, Backrooms. Then we welcome Elizabeth Monoian and Robert Ferry to the podcast to talk about their amazing Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI), a remarkable effort to surface the potential beauty of renewable energy. As a unique kind of public art enterprise, LAGI has been holding design competitions across the world since 2010. We talk about their mission to help inspire more ecologically and socially attuned modes of futurism and how land art can seed visions of better post-fossil worlds to come. We do deep dives into the projects they are currently developing in Fiji and Houston and then turn to some of LAGI's other projects including solar murals and art + energy camps. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love. Image notes = Arch of Time is a Land Art Generator artwork designed by Riccardo Mariano. Incorporating solar photovoltaic modules it will generate 400,000 kWh per year, offsetting the electricity demand of Mason Park. The artwork makes for an exceptional venue for events, learning, discovery, and play. As a time measuring device, the Arch keeps track of the sun as it moves across the sky, engaging visitors with a magical light display within a comfortably shaded outdoor space. The Arch was originally a submission to LAGI 2019 Abu Dhabi. The O by Alberto Roncelli incorporates solar photovoltaic and rainwater harvesting to produce 150,000 kWh of electricity and 1.2 million liters of filtered water each year. The winning submission to LAGI 2025 Fiji, a collaboration with the Village of Marou.
About Cultures of Energy
Cultures of Energy brings writers, artists and scholars together to talk, think and feel their way into the Anthropocene. We cover serious issues like climate change, species extinction and energy transition. But we also try to confront seemingly huge and insurmountable problems with insight, creativity and laughter. We believe in the possibility of personal and cultural change. And we believe that the arts and humanities can help guide us toward a more sustainable future. Cultures of Energy is a Mingomena Media production. Co-hosts are @DominicBoyer and @CymeneHowe
Customized Recaps
AI-powered recaps with compact key takeaways, quotes, and insights.
Straight to Your Inbox
Get key takeaways from Cultures of Energy in a 5-minute read.
Save Hours Every Week
Stay current on your favorite podcasts without falling behind.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Podzilla's Cultures of Energy daily summary?
It's a free AI-powered email that summarizes new episodes of Cultures of Energy as soon as they're published. You get the key takeaways, notable quotes, and links & mentions — all in a quick read.
How does the Cultures of Energy podcast summary work?
When a new episode drops, our AI transcribes and analyzes it, then generates a personalized summary tailored to your interests and profession. It's delivered to your inbox every morning.
Is this an official Cultures of Energy product?
No. Podzilla is an independent service that summarizes publicly available podcast content. We're not affiliated with or endorsed by Dominic Boyer.
Can I get summaries of other podcasts too?
Absolutely! The free plan covers up to 3 podcasts. Upgrade to Pro for 15, or Premium for 50. Browse our full catalog at /podcasts.
How often does Cultures of Energy release new episodes?
Cultures of Energy publishes biweekly. Our AI generates a summary within hours of each new episode.
What topics does Cultures of Energy cover?
Cultures of Energy covers topics including Science, Arts, Social Sciences. Our AI identifies the specific themes in each episode and highlights what matters most to you.
Start getting Cultures of Energy summaries tomorrow morning.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.