Crude Representations: BP and the Cultural Imagination of Oil In brief Date - 24 January 2025Venue - OnlineKeynote speaker - Mona Damluji (University of California, Santa Barbara)Organisers - Peter Adkins (University of Edinburgh) and Malcolm Cook (University of Southampton) Book your free ticket on Eventbrite About the eventOil is a cultural as well as material product. It is pervasive in every aspect of modern life: transport, energy, communications and media, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, food ingredients and packaging, homes. As many scholars in the energy and environmental humanities have demonstrated, to understand our current dependence on oil and enact decarbonisation we need to contend with its cultural dimensions.Crude Representation is one-day multi-disciplinary symposium that looks to examine and engage with one of the largest and longest running oil companies, BP. It will examine the rich, surprising and troubling history of cultural representations of BP, exploring both how the company itself has drawn on and utilised forms of cultural representation, and how artists and other cultural figures have responded to, critically interrogated, and represented the company in their own work.Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, the symposium will feature speakers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds including film studies, media studies, art history and cultural heritage, literary studies, sociology, history and Islamic studies.The symposium will be followed by a seminar series in the spring - stay tuned for more information. Programme2pm to 3:15pm - Panel 1: Refining Oil Culture: Extracting, Translating, and Transforming BPLaith Shakir - A Buried Empire: Archaeology and Oil Exploration in Interwar IraqAlireza FakhrkonandehMadison Leeson - Iraq Petroleum: BP Corporate Legitimacy in the Exploitation of Iraqi Oil3:30pm to 4:45pm - Panel 2: Communicating and Selling Oil Culture: BP’s Advertisements, Films and Social LicenceMattin Biglari - Filming the Construction of BP’s Aden Oil Refinery: Environmental Imaginaries, Dispossession and Corporate Erasure, 1952-54Matthew Vollgraff - From Sacred Fire to Oil Empire: British Petroleum and Ancient ArchaeologyKylie Walters - Calibrating Televisual Modernism: British Petroleum’s Experimental Broadcasts in Color5pm to 6:30pm - Keynote: Mona Damluji - Pipeline Cinema and the Cultural Imagination of Oil6:45pm to 8pm - Panel 3: From Concealment to Critique: BP, Contemporary Art and Visual CulturePatricia Widener - Streetside and Public Images of BP: In Promotion, Concealment, and ResistanceApril McInnes - Environmental Terrorism: BP, Art, and Indigenous Resistance in CanadaCarina Brand - BP’s Enduring Histories in the Artwork of Tala Madani and Jala WahidHow to attendThis event is open to all, and free to attend. It is an online event, and spaces can be reserved on Eventbrite. Book your free ticket on Eventbrite Are you interested in a PhD in English Literature?We offer two PhDs: one in English Literature; and one in Creative Writing. Our interdisciplinary environment brings together specialists in all periods and genres of literature and literary analysis. Working with colleagues elsewhere in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC) and across the wider University of Edinburgh, we are also able to support research which crosses further boundaries between disciplines and/or languages. Find out more about PhD study in English Literature at Edinburgh Jan 24 2025 14.00 - 20.00 Crude Representations: BP and the Cultural Imagination of Oil An online multi-disciplinary symposium exploring the history and context around the representation of the oil company BP, featuring three panels and a keynote speech. Online Book your free ticket on Eventbrite
Crude Representations: BP and the Cultural Imagination of Oil In brief Date - 24 January 2025Venue - OnlineKeynote speaker - Mona Damluji (University of California, Santa Barbara)Organisers - Peter Adkins (University of Edinburgh) and Malcolm Cook (University of Southampton) Book your free ticket on Eventbrite About the eventOil is a cultural as well as material product. It is pervasive in every aspect of modern life: transport, energy, communications and media, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, food ingredients and packaging, homes. As many scholars in the energy and environmental humanities have demonstrated, to understand our current dependence on oil and enact decarbonisation we need to contend with its cultural dimensions.Crude Representation is one-day multi-disciplinary symposium that looks to examine and engage with one of the largest and longest running oil companies, BP. It will examine the rich, surprising and troubling history of cultural representations of BP, exploring both how the company itself has drawn on and utilised forms of cultural representation, and how artists and other cultural figures have responded to, critically interrogated, and represented the company in their own work.Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, the symposium will feature speakers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds including film studies, media studies, art history and cultural heritage, literary studies, sociology, history and Islamic studies.The symposium will be followed by a seminar series in the spring - stay tuned for more information. Programme2pm to 3:15pm - Panel 1: Refining Oil Culture: Extracting, Translating, and Transforming BPLaith Shakir - A Buried Empire: Archaeology and Oil Exploration in Interwar IraqAlireza FakhrkonandehMadison Leeson - Iraq Petroleum: BP Corporate Legitimacy in the Exploitation of Iraqi Oil3:30pm to 4:45pm - Panel 2: Communicating and Selling Oil Culture: BP’s Advertisements, Films and Social LicenceMattin Biglari - Filming the Construction of BP’s Aden Oil Refinery: Environmental Imaginaries, Dispossession and Corporate Erasure, 1952-54Matthew Vollgraff - From Sacred Fire to Oil Empire: British Petroleum and Ancient ArchaeologyKylie Walters - Calibrating Televisual Modernism: British Petroleum’s Experimental Broadcasts in Color5pm to 6:30pm - Keynote: Mona Damluji - Pipeline Cinema and the Cultural Imagination of Oil6:45pm to 8pm - Panel 3: From Concealment to Critique: BP, Contemporary Art and Visual CulturePatricia Widener - Streetside and Public Images of BP: In Promotion, Concealment, and ResistanceApril McInnes - Environmental Terrorism: BP, Art, and Indigenous Resistance in CanadaCarina Brand - BP’s Enduring Histories in the Artwork of Tala Madani and Jala WahidHow to attendThis event is open to all, and free to attend. It is an online event, and spaces can be reserved on Eventbrite. Book your free ticket on Eventbrite Are you interested in a PhD in English Literature?We offer two PhDs: one in English Literature; and one in Creative Writing. Our interdisciplinary environment brings together specialists in all periods and genres of literature and literary analysis. Working with colleagues elsewhere in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC) and across the wider University of Edinburgh, we are also able to support research which crosses further boundaries between disciplines and/or languages. Find out more about PhD study in English Literature at Edinburgh Jan 24 2025 14.00 - 20.00 Crude Representations: BP and the Cultural Imagination of Oil An online multi-disciplinary symposium exploring the history and context around the representation of the oil company BP, featuring three panels and a keynote speech. Online Book your free ticket on Eventbrite
Jan 24 2025 14.00 - 20.00 Crude Representations: BP and the Cultural Imagination of Oil An online multi-disciplinary symposium exploring the history and context around the representation of the oil company BP, featuring three panels and a keynote speech.
