In 2022, every first and third Thursday of most months, the members and guests of the Energies Consciousness Reading Group meet online to discuss core texts of the emerging field of Energy Humanities. Each month will be devoted to one particular aspect. (see below)
Every first Thursday, the participants discuss a chosen text within the group, and every third Thursday, they aim at having a lecture or an informed discussion with an invited expert. In general, all sessions will last from 19:00 to 21:00 CET (Copenhagen). According to the time zones which our guests are in the appointments might alter.
A PDF of the program of the reading group you can see and download here.
For access to the texts please write to ania(dot)mauruschat(at)hum(dot)ku(dot)dk.
Link to the Zoom sessions:
Coordinators: Ania Mauruschat & Jenny Gräf Sheppard (both Copenhagen)
Core team: Akvilė Buitvydaitė (Copenhagen), Aldo Mendoza (Mexico City), Elisa Ferrari (Vancouver), Mimmi Bie (Copenhagen)
Acknowledgment: A very special shout-out goes to the incredibly generous Douglas Kahn who advised us on how to structure this reading sequence.
Upcoming program (see past events below):
Fall 2022, Energies & Arts
November 17, 09:00 – 11:00 CET
Douglas Kahn, Honorary Professor at the Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University, Professor Emeritus at the University of New South Wales (AUS) and Professor Emiritus at University of California, Davis (USA). Editor of
Past Events since January 2022:
January 2022: The Physics of Energy
Jan. 6, 19:00 – 21:00 CET: E.C. Pielou: Energy of Nature. Chapter 1 – 3 (Energy is everywhere / What is Energy? Some Preliminary Physics / Energy and Its Ultimate Fate), 17 (Wave Energy: Sound and Seismic Waves), 19 (How Energy is used) & Epilogue.
Jan. 20, 19:00 – 21:00 CET: Presentation on Global Warming by Anders Svensson, Associate professor at Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen and Head of Studies of MSc Climate Change. Afterward, discussion on the different approaches to climate change and energies from natural sciences and humanities.
Recommended links on global warming and climate change:
February 2022: Energy Humanities
Feb. 3, 19:00 – 21:00 CET:
Casey Williams: Energy Humanities (forthcoming in The Johns Hopkins Guide to Critical and Cultural Theory) (15 pages)
Dominic Boyer: “Energopower. An Introduction.” In: Anthropological Quarterly, Volume 87, Number 2, Spring 2014, pp. 309-333 (Article)
Feb. 17, 18:00 – 19:30 CET:
Special Guest: Dominic Boyer, Professor of Anthropology at Rice University, Houston, and Berggruen Fellow 2021 – 2022, Los Angeles (USA) as well as filmmaker and podcaster. One of the founding figures of Energy Humanities. (Personal website)
After a short introduction by Dominic we will discuss with him the history and aim of Energy Humanities, his concept of Energopower, the duograph Energopolitics and Ecologics, which he published together with Cymene Howe, as well as the podcast Cultures of Energy and the documentary Not OK about the loss of Iceland’s first major glacier Okjökull, both of which
Dominic and Cyeme are in charge of.
A recording of Dominic’s presentation and the discussion with him can be found here.
March 2022: Energy Intimacy & Indigenous Studies
March 3, 19:00 – 21:00 CET:
Warren Cariou (2017): “Aboriginal”, in Jennifer Wenzel, Patricia Yaeger & Imre Szeman (eds.): Fueling Cultures. 101 Words of Energies and Environments.
Kent Linthicum; Mikaela Relford; Julia C. Johnson: „Defining Energy in Nineteenth-Century Native American Literature” (2021) in: Environmental Humanities. 13:2 (November 2021).
March/April 2022: Animism & Other Cultural Energies
March 31, 19:00 – 21:00 CET:
Tim Ingold (2006) Rethinking the animate, re-animating thought, Ethnos, 71:1, 9-20.
Milford Graves (2010): Music Extensions of Infinite Dimensions. in John Zorn (ed.): Arcana V – music, magic, mysticism.
April 21, 17:00 – 19:00 CET:
Guest expert: Jake Meginsky, composer & filmmaker, director of Milford Graves – Full Mantis (2018)
Jake Meginsky & Neil Cloaca Young (2018): Milford Graves Full Mantis. (92 min.), trailer:
May 2022: Energies of Vibrations & the Senses
May 5, 19:00 – 21:00 CET
Shelly Trower (2012): Senses of Vibration. The Pain and Pleasure of Sound. New York/London. (224 p.)
May 19, 19:00 – 21:00 CET
Guest expert: Shelley Trower, Professor of English literature and a founding member of the Climate Network at the University of Roehampton in London (UK).
In 2012 Shelley Trower published her impressive book Senses of Vibrations. A History of the Pleasure and Pain of Sound, which has been summarized as follows: "The study of the senses has become a rich topic in recent years. Senses of Vibration explores a wide range of sensory experience and makes a decisive new contribution to this growing field by focussing not simply on the senses as such, but on the material experience - vibration - that underpins them. This is the first book to take the theme of vibration as central, offering an interdisciplinary history of the phenomenon and its reverberations in the cultural imaginary. It tracks vibration through the work of a wide range of writers, including physiologists (who thought vibrations in the nerves delivered sensations to the brain), physicists (who claimed that light, heat, electricity and other forms of energy were vibratory), spiritualists (who figured that spiritual energies also existed in vibratory form), and poets and novelists from Coleridge to Dickens and Wells. Senses of Vibration is a work of scholarship that cuts through a range of disciplines and will reverberate for many years to come."
It is our great pleasure to welcome her as the special guest to our fourth Energies Consciousness Lectures. At the event after a short introduction by Shelley we will talk with her about how her interest in sound and vibrations developed; if she sees a connection to energies; what role new materialism has played for her in the development of this book, and how her thinking and work has developed from vibrations towards ecological and environmental topics in the last years. All are welcome to join this public lecture and our discussion with Shelley online!
June 2022: Sub-Audible Energies & Vibrotactile Phenomena
June 2, 19:00 – 21:00 CET
Andrew Belletty: "Listening to Country. Energy, Time and Ecology in Aboriginal Worldmaking" (2018) (150 pages)
June 16, 10:00 – 11:30 CET
Guest expert: Andrew Belletty, Indian-born Australian audio-visual Designer, Vibrotactile Media Artist and Writer
In the abstract on his website, Andrew summarises the core findings of his study "Listening to Country. Energy, Time and Ecology in Aboriginal Worldmaking" as follows:
"In this thesis and through my creative practice I argue for a situated listening that draws upon the Aboriginal idea of ‘Listening to Country’ through song practice. It is based upon a model of listening that extends beyond audibility, to sub-audible energies and vibrotactile phenomena and, thus, suggests a more complex and grounded notion of sound, perception and a connection to the environment. It challenges the compartmentalization of the dominant euro-centric sensorium where sound has become something that can be easily quantified, recorded, reproduced, stored and disseminated through technological means and attenuated by digital media practices. Sound and listening is instead situated energetically, perceptually, corporeally, and environmentally, enmeshed with place and culture through practices connecting human to non-human bodies and entities. My creative practice is derived from my experiences and collaborative work with Aboriginal communities in song practices evincing a very deep, connection to ‘Country’ developed through highly trans-sensory attention and activation of place, and iterative through time unimaginable in Western cultures. Based upon these extended modalities I propose a de-colonizing critique of the euro-centric concept of sound and listening that is developed through my creative practice."
You can download and read Andrew's thesis here.