When Big Data and Energy Meet

In 2018, one of the activities I’ll be pursuing as visiting professor at the Department of Science and Technology studies (blog) at the University of Vienna is giving a course on energy and big data. This will be the occasion to explore with students of the Masters programme in Science and Technology Studies how energy and big data intersect and how this intersection matters for the energy transition. The course will run in March 2018.

Besides the traditional lecture form, we will have some practical sessions where we engage with the material culture of energy. A visit to the ASCR Demo Center at the Seestadt Technology Center is planned.

After Oil

One of the outcomes of the course will build on the work of the Petrocultures collective, published in After Oil. This small book provides a toolbox to analyze narratives of transition. As such, it is a valuable introduction to discourse analysis. Furthermore, the political dimension of transition narratives is foregrounded in this approach. After Oil will provide the theoretical and methodological basis for group work and student presentations. Students will chose a particular narrative to explore, in the form of their choice.

reference

Szeman, I., & Group, P. R. (2016). After Oil. Edmonton, Alberta: Petrocultures Research Group. http://afteroil.ca/resources-2/after-oil-book/