Dr. Georgiana Banita (Universit?t Bamberg): "Underground Environments and the Texas Oil Gothic"

11.07.2012, 16:15 Uhr, MS12/00.09

This talk examines Texas oil fiction within the Gothic tradition and more broadly at the confluence of modernism and industrialization, in order to tease out the importance of Texas oil chronicles for a more encompassing vision of how petroleum aesthetics have inflected American literature from the first wildcat wells to peak oil and after. I argue that narratives of energy expenditure and toxic pollution on the iconic Texas oil fields reveal to what extent petroleum aesthetics usefully supplement key elements of both the Gothic