Helios 2: Anne Pasek on Changing Methods in a Changing Climate

12 Min Read

July 13, 2021

Helios is an EH interview series about new research in the energy humanities and the creative processes that bring it to life.

Our second installment features Anne Pasek, Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair in Media, Culture, and the Environment at Trent University in Peterborough, ON. Anne’s wide-ranging research interests include the cultural politics of climate change, environmental communication, and rethinking academic research norms in a warming world. In addition to multiple book projects, she is currently founding the Trent Low-Carbon Research Lab.

EH editor Caleb Wellum sat down with Anne over Zoom on June 10 to talk about the methodological concerns, approaches, and experiments that inform her work. During the hourlong interview, they discussed critical making, the materiality of digital tech, and the importance of critical empathy in divided times.

Click the download link below to read the full interview.

Download the interview
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Read More

November 19, 2024

Tanner Mirrlees

Imre Szeman's new book, "Futures of the Sun: The Struggle Over Renewable Life," explores how dominant powers—from "meta-entrepreneurs" like Elon Musk and Bill Gates to nationalist governments and petro-populists—compete to define a "common sense" of renewable futures that preserves the very systems driving the climate crisis. In this unorthodox review of the book, communications scholar and theorist Tanner Mirrlees introduces the text through a series of thematically connected concepts and questions that chart his response to the book and offer entry points for prospective readers. Mirrlees presents "Futures of the Sun" as a text that it will be important and useful to think with in a perplexing moment of flux and uncertainty in global climate politics.

Read
March 19, 2025

Dominique Arsenault

The hydrogen economy is often imagined as a clean energy solution but its foundations remain tied to fossil fuels. Doctoral researcher Dominique Arsenault traces the ways hydrogen development—particularly through blue hydrogen—reinforces existing oil and gas infrastructure, prolonging fossil fuel dependence under the guise of transition. From Canada’s hydrogen exports to Germany to industry backed visions of a hydrogen-powered future, the promise of decarbonization may be little more than a delay tactic.

Read
all articles