The 'Energy Unconscious': Natural Resources and the American Novel, 1846-1979

我的论文探讨了1846年至1979年间美国小说中能量的表现形式。我将通过分析在鲸油、煤炭、石油和核能占主导地位的时期所写的关键文本，来研究“能量无意识”（渗透在社会文化实践中的物质能源的大部分未被注意到的情感力量）是如何存在于美国小说中的。我的论文将运用这一概念框架，对美国文学文本进行新的解读，这些文本阐明了国家能源、环境退化、社会文化实践和地缘政治力量之间的关系。对于这样的分析，美国尤其重要，因为这个国家的文化习俗对人为气候变化的影响不成比例。我认为，对文学叙事的分析，可以同时揭示和扭曲能量的情感力量，从而照亮一个国家的能量无意识，从而为必要的能量转换提供潜在的途径。

My thesis explores representations of energy in the American novel between the years 1846 and 1979. I will examine how an 'energy unconscious' (the largely unremarked, affectual force of material energy sources which permeates sociocultural practices) exists in American fiction through analyses of key texts written in the periods when whale oil, coal, oil, and nuclear power were predominant. My thesis will deploy this conceptual framework to give new readings of American literary texts that articulate the relationship between the nation's energy sources, environmental degradation, sociocultural practices and geopolitical power. America is particularly important to such an analysis, for the nation's cultural practices have disproportionately contributed to anthropogenic climate change. I propose that analyses of literary narratives, in the way they simultaneously reveal and distort the affectual force of energy, can illuminate a nation's energy unconscious, thereby suggesting potential avenues for necessary energy transitions.