Monographs
Imagining Free Energy: Fantasies, Utopias, and Critiques of America
Monograph. Imagining Free Energy asks the question: What would it mean for humanity to have unlimited energy? I introduce the concept of free or unlimited energy as a critical imaginary for understanding America in the Anthropocene. From Henry David Thoreau’s critique of a nineteenth century free energy utopia to present day conjectures about new fusion technologies in development around the globe, free energy speculation is examined as a mode of theorizing the relationship between human social processes and the material environment. (Preparing for submission)
A Universe of Forces: Energetics in Early Twentieth-Century Theory and Literature
Monograph. A Universe of Forces examines how authors and theorists outside of the sciences were contending with questions about nature and social life in relation to energetic theory during the first decades of the twentieth century. (Manuscript complete, under revision)
Select Publications
"Envisioning ARPA-C: A Transdisciplinary Institution for Radical Climate Research and Intervention"
Lynn Badia, Josette M. Plaut, Joseph C. von Fischer, John Volckens, and Jeff Muhs Earth's Future, Vol. 9, Issue 6, June 2021 https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EF002115 |
"The Nation As Energy: Imagining Society as Energy Intensity"
Lynn Badia American Quarterly, Vol. 72, No. 3, Sept 2020 Special Issue: “Energy Pasts and Futures in American Studies” Johns Hopkins University Press https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/42971/print |
Climate Realism: The Aesthetics of Weather and Atmosphere in the Anthropocene
Lynn Badia, Marija Cetinić, and Jeff Diamanti Routledge, 2020 https://www.routledge.com/Climate-Realism-The-Aesthetics-of-Weather-and-Atmosphere-in-the-Anthropocene/Badia-Cetinic-Diamanti/p/book/9781138370043 |
Special Issue: Climate Realism: The Aesthetics of Weather, Climate, and Atmosphere
Lynn Badia, Marija Cetinić, and Jeff Diamanti Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities, Vol. 7, No. 2-3, Spring-Fall 2020 University of Nebraska Press https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/resilience.7.issue-2-3 |
"Absolute Indeterminacy: Karel Čapek’s Pragmatist Science Fiction”
Lynn Badia Open Library of the Humanities, Vol. 5, No. 1, Sep 2019 Special Issue: “Powering the Future: Energy Resources in Science Fiction and Fantasy” https://olh.openlibhums.org/collections/special/powering-the-future-energy-resources-in-science-fiction-and-fantasy/ |
“’A Transcendentalism in Mechanics’: Henry David Thoreau’s Critique of a Free Energy Utopia”
Lynn Badia Nineteenth-Century Energies: Literature, Technology, Culture Routledge, 2018 https://www.routledge.com/Nineteenth-Century-Energies-Literature-Technology-Culture/Voskuil/p/book/9780367023638 |
"Surveillance"
Lynn Badia Fueling Culture: 101 Words for Energy and Environment Fordham University Press, 2017 https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823273911/fueling-culture/ |
"Émile Durkheim’s Theory of Culture as Force and Energy"
Lynn Badia Cultural Studies, Vol. 30, No. 6, Dec 2016 https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcus20/30/6 |
“‘A Transcendentalism in Mechanics’: Henry David Thoreau’s Critique of a Free Energy Utopia”
Lynn Badia Nineteenth-Century Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 36, No. 5, Dec 2014 Special Issue: "Nineteenth-Century Energies" Taylor & Francis https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/gncc20/36/5?nav=tocList |
After Oil
Co-written and co-edited with Imre Szeman and the Petrocultures Research Collective West Virginia University Press, 2016 https://wvupressonline.com/node/645 |