Myles Lennon, "Subjects of the Sun: Solar Energy in the Shadows of Racial Capitalism" (Duke UP, 2025)

Myles Lennon, "Subjects of the Sun: Solar Energy in the Shadows of Racial Capitalism" (Duke UP, 2025)

In the face of accelerating climate change, anticapitalist environmental justice activists and elite tech corporations increasingly see eye to eye. Both envision solar-powered futures where renewable energy redresses gentrification, systemic racism, and underemployment. However, as Myles Lennon argues in Subjects of the Sun: Solar Energy in the Shadows of Racial Capitalism (Duke University Press, 2025), solar power is no less likely to exploit marginalized communities than dirtier forms of energy. Drawing from ethnographic research on clean energy corporations and community solar campaigns in New York City, Lennon argues that both groups overlook solar’s extractive underside because they primarily experience energy from the sun in the virtual world of the cloud. He shows how the material properties of solar technology—its shiny surfaces, decentralized spatiality, and modularity—work closely with images, digital platforms, and quantitative graphics to shape utopic visions in which renewable energy can eradicate the constitutive tensions of racial capitalism. As a corrective to this virtual world, Lennon calls for an equitable energy transition that centers the senses and sensibilities neglected by screenwork: one’s haptic care for their local environment; the full-bodied feel of infrastructural labor; and the sublime affect of the sun. Myles Lennon is Dean's Assistant Professor of Environment and Society and Anthropology at Brown University. Alec Fiorini is a PhD student at Queen Mary University London's Centre for Labour, Sustainability and Global Production (CLaSP). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

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Timothy Shenk, “Maurice Dobb: Political Economist” (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013)

Timothy Shenk, “Maurice Dobb: Political Economist” (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013)

The British Marxist economist Maurice Dobb is now largely forgotten. That’s too bad for a number of reasons. He was a brilliant thinker who wrote some of the most insightful analyses of the developmen...

22 Helmi 20141h 3min

Constance DeVereaux and Martin Griffin, “Narrative, Identity, and the Map of Cultural Policy” (Ashgate, 2013)

Constance DeVereaux and Martin Griffin, “Narrative, Identity, and the Map of Cultural Policy” (Ashgate, 2013)

Narrative, Identity, and the Map of Cultural Policy: Once Upon a Time in a Globalized World (Ashgate, 2013), a new book by Constance DeVereaux (Colorado State University) and Martin Griffin (Univer...

14 Helmi 201453min

Anastasia Karandinou, “No Matter: Theories and Practices of the Ephemeral in Architecture” (Ashgate, 2013)

Anastasia Karandinou, “No Matter: Theories and Practices of the Ephemeral in Architecture” (Ashgate, 2013)

The intersection of empirical research and critical theory is the basis for Anastasia Karandinou‘s new book No Matter: Theories and Practices of the Ephemeral in Architecture (Ashgate, 2013). The bo...

30 Tammi 201447min

Tony Bennett, “Making Culture, Changing Society” (Routledge, 2013)

Tony Bennett, “Making Culture, Changing Society” (Routledge, 2013)

In his new book Making Culture, Changing Society (Routledge, 2013), Professor Tony Bennett aims to change the way we think about culture. The book uses four core ideas about the nature and meaning of...

13 Marras 20131h 4min

Greg Hainge, “Noise Matters: Towards an Ontology of Noise” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013)

Greg Hainge, “Noise Matters: Towards an Ontology of Noise” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013)

What is noise? In his new book Noise Matters: Towards an Ontology of Noise (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), Greg Hainge, Reader in French at University of Queensland, Australia, explores this question. T...

19 Loka 201341min

David Beer, “Popular Culture and New Media: The Politics of Circulation” (Palgrave, 2013)

David Beer, “Popular Culture and New Media: The Politics of Circulation” (Palgrave, 2013)

Popular Culture and New Media: The Politics of Circulation (Palgrave, 2013) is written by David Beer, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at York University in the UK. He blogs here and tweets here. The bo...

21 Syys 201338min

Sarah Banet-Weiser, “Authentic: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture” (NYU Press, 2013)

Sarah Banet-Weiser, “Authentic: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture” (NYU Press, 2013)

In Authentic: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture (NYU Press, 2013), Sarah Banet-Weiser scrutinizes the spread of brand culture into other spheres of social life that the market–at least i...

27 Elo 201357min

Brian Michael Goss, “Rebooting the Herman and Chomsky Propaganda Model in the Twenty-First Century” (Peter Lang, 2013)

Brian Michael Goss, “Rebooting the Herman and Chomsky Propaganda Model in the Twenty-First Century” (Peter Lang, 2013)

Brian Michael Goss, professor of communication at St. Louis University in Madrid, has taken one of media’s most studied theories and given it a facelift. In Rebooting the Herman and Chomsky Propagand...

22 Heinä 201344min

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