Working Nature: A History of the Energy Economy with Daniela Russ
In Working Nature, Daniela Russ offers a history of the energy economy and its representations over the 19th and 20th centuries. Russ argues that energy is neither a thing nor an ability, but a social relation to nature forged through capitalist industrialization. The concept of energy mediates the appropriation of diverse natural forces – water, steam, coal, electricity – altering the way these forces would naturally behave to perform work in production. From the valuation of coal, to the crafting of the electrical current, to the formalization of energy commodities, Working Energy asks how engineers, scientists and economists achieved the production and circulation of nature’s work against social and natural resistance. In so doing, they undermined the very purpose of the energy economy – to emancipate humanity from nature.
This event is hybrid and is sponsored by the European Studies Council and the Center for Historical Enquiry & the Social Sciences (CHESS).
Speakers
Daniela Russ is a historical sociologist based at the Global and European Studies Institute of the University of Leipzig, Germany. Her research explores the history of the energy economy in a global perspective, the conflicts around the expansion and decarbonization of the electric grid, and the theory and practice of Soviet energy planning. Her work has been published by outlets such as Contemporary European History, Verso Books and Stanford University Press.