Estética fósil : imaginarios de la energía y crisis ecosocial / Jaime Vindel.

Barcelona : Arcàdia, 2020.

57 pages : illustrations ; 18 cm.

This book addresses the way in which the use of fossil fuels as a primary source of energy during the Industrial Revolution, and the development of thermodynamic physics in the mid-nineteenth century, were accompanied by a series of cultural imaginaries that led to a productivist worldview in the relationship between humanity and nature. The energetic exuberance provided by the synthesis between coal and thermodynamic machines would guarantee the increase of social wealth, avoiding the repercussions of the new industrial capitalism on the physical wellbeing of the workers and on terrestrial ecosystems. The 'fossil aesthetic' that gives its title to the essay refers to the fact that the impact of this worldview is not only related to a series of ideological discourses, but has been sensibly inscribed in our experience of reality through the diffusion of a certain image of the cosmos. The book describes the effect that the imaginaries of fossils and energy have had, over the last two centuries, on various scientific disciplines and cultural practices, while critically challenging their validity in the context of neoliberalism and the ongoing eco-social crisis.

Spanish

May 12, 2021

Et al. ; 7

Includes bibliographical references and index.