Human Energy Futures

This research cluster will establish at ASU one of the foremost interdisciplinary US research communities in the humanities focused on energy. It will build the foundations and capacity to support long-term excellence in humanities research and scholarship and to secure significant external funding support. Within its work, it will focus on a number of key themes, each seeking to identify how the humanities can help illuminate and inform the discussion and design of future human communities and the energy systems at their heart. The research cluster aims to focus on transitions, democracy, justice, and imagination. Participants will be documenting work in the humanities, in literature, history, religion, philosophy, ethics, etc., that provides a foundation for future humanistic work in the field of energy. This documentation will be made available via the Internet to scholars around the globe. They will also generate a list of key individuals and groups in the humanities working in this space around the globe who can act as long-term partners in the development of future research and other activities. The research cluster will also hold a workshop on energy humanities, to be held in Spring 2016, designed to showcase the significance of the humanities for energy to a variety of audiences in both the humanities and the energy sector. Participants will also collaborate with LightWorks to organize cluster activities involving their visiting speaker, Stephanie LeMenager, who will visit ASU Feb. 24-26, 2016, and with the Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative, who are arranging a Fall speaker on water, energy, and climate fiction.