Petrofiction Explained

Petrofiction or oil fiction,[1] is a genre of fiction focused on the role of petroleum in society.

Background

The concept was first developed by Amitav Ghosh to classify literature about the petroleum industry and the impact of oil on society.[2] He coined the term when reviewing Abdul Rahman Munif's Cities of Salt in 1992.[3] When describing the concept, he noticed an absence of literature exploring the role of "oil encounters" between countries that extract oil and those that consume.[4] Imre Szeman in a 2012 editorial introduction to a special edition of the American Book Review proposed a slightly larger scope: all works that explore "the important role played by oil in contemporary society."

Works of petrofiction proliferated in the 2000s and 2010s, along with a growing critical focus, as a result of concerns about climate change and peak oil.[5] Since its inauguration the term has been widely used in literary criticism to explore fiction which evaluates society's dominance by a petroleum economy and a related culture shaped by petroleum.[6] Most critics were trying to find works that focused on the oil industry before Cities of Salt.[7] This genre has been particularly important in non-Western literature, exploring how encounters with oil are entangled with other issues in the Global South.

Some critics have connected the role of petrofiction to the emergence of climate fiction, in that both are evaluating and addressing the concerns brought on by the Anthropocene.[8]

Notable examples

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Oil Fictions: World Literature and our Contemporary Petrosphere Edited by Stacey Balkan and Swaralipi Nandi. 2021-04-17. www.psupress.org.
  2. Xinos. Ilana. Winter 2006. Petro-capitalism, petrofiction, and Islamic discourse: The formation of an imagined community in Cities of Salt. Arab Studies Quarterly. 28. 1–12.
  3. Riddle. Amy. Petrofiction and Political Economy in the Age of Late Fossil Capital. Mediations: Journal of the Marxist Literary Group. 31. 2.
  4. Szeman. Imre. 2012. Introduction to Focus: Petrofictions. American Book Review. 33. 3. 3. 10.1353/abr.2018.0084 . 150227700 . 2153-4578.
  5. Book: Schneider-Mayerson, Matthew. Peak Oil : apocalyptic environmentalism and libertarian political culture. 2015. 978-0-226-28526-9. Chicago. 897001614.
  6. Book: LeMenager, Stephanie. Living oil : petroleum culture in the American century. 2016. 978-0-19-046197-3. Oxford University Press paperback. New York, NY. 927363764.
  7. Bergthaller. Hannes. 2017. Cli-Fi and Petrofiction: Questioning Genre in the Anthropocene. Amerikastudien / American Studies. 62. 1. 120–125. 44982310 . 0340-2827.
  8. Bergthaller. Hannes. 2017. Cli-Fi and Petrofiction: Questioning Genre in the Anthropocene. Amerikastudien / American Studies. 62. 1. 120–125. 44982310 . 0340-2827.
  9. Macdonald. Graeme. 2017-05-04. "Monstrous transformer": Petrofiction and world literature. Journal of Postcolonial Writing. 53. 3. 289–302. 10.1080/17449855.2017.1337680. 148809903 . 1744-9855.
  10. Krieg. C. Parker. 2017. Energy Futures: John Updike's Petrofictions. Studies in American Fiction. 44. 1. 87–112. 10.1353/saf.2017.0003. 164787923 . 2158-5806.
  11. Xinos. Ilana. Petro-Capitalism, Petrofiction, and Islamic Discourse: The Formation of an Imagined Community in "Cities of Salt" . 2006. Arab Studies Quarterly. 28. 1. 1–12. 41858517 . 0271-3519.
  12. Tanaka. Shouhei. 2020. The Great Arrangement: Planetary Petrofiction and Novel Futures. MFS Modern Fiction Studies. 66. 1. 190–215. 10.1353/mfs.2020.0008. 1080-658X. free.
  13. Web site: Call for Papers, Oil Fictions: World literature and our Contemporary Petrosphere Global South Studies, U.Va.. 2021-04-17. globalsouthstudies.as.virginia.edu.

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