Ebook: Of Modern Extraction: Experiments in Critical Petro-theology

This book critically analyzes the ways that energy, extraction, and oil—in ancient to modern thought—have been entwined with Western gender ideals and Christian narratives of divinity, grace, and redemption. Given the urgency around energy shifts, the book also explores “alternative energies”—not of a technosavior incarnation, but in relics and queer margins of the Christian tradition that might inspire alternative desires, rhythms of life, and spiritual-psychic-embodied alliances.
Rowe explores how, in the context of Western thought, energy has since ancient times been conceptualized in concert with spirituality and religion. In this historical-cultural scope it has also consistently been gendered. Arguing that when it comes to climate change, the need to fundamentally rethink energy policies, practices, values, and assumptions becomes urgent, this book examines how a consistent obstacle to making these key shifts is the fact that we have become unconscious of the ways religion and gender have formed our energy values and expectations—and so repeat the worst of our theologies and gender norms in our energy practices and policies.