Fossil Aesthetics - Energy Imaginaries and Global Warming

Fossil Aesthetics explores how fossil fuels, thermodynamic science, and industrial capitalism have shaped modern cultural imaginaries. Bridging political ecology, eco-Marxism, and aesthetic theory, the book argues that energy is not only a material force but also a powerful symbolic construct that has naturalized productivism and domination. From the steam engine to neoliberal “creative energy,” it traces how fossil imaginaries structure perception, labor, and worldviews in the ‘Capitalocene’. At a time of climate crisis, this essay calls for a denaturalizing of fossil culture and imagining alternative, post-fossil energy cultures. Reframes energy as cultureBridges ecology and aesthetics Imagines post-fossil futures