Rice University, 16-20 September

A visit with Dominic Boyer & Friends, Department of Anthropology
Rice University, Houston









+ Brown Baggy.

Epilogue…

What a great trip! Dominic set up a number of inspiringly productive engagements, including a brown bag presentation where I presented my initial thoughts on the European trip, a combination of techniques for locating what I call the Sweet Spot of Modernity (empathy for the graph, corporeality of expertise, science as salon culture), developed in part by my recollection of James Faubion‘s manuscript Modern Greek Lessons, who was in attendance, by the way, during my talk and even came up afterward exchanging a warm greeting.

Cymene Howe, faculty member, posed the first question concerning how deep or, rather, how extensive could I frame staging of verification, a perfect question because it links epistemological frames of reference to authenticity through performativity. My response was a bit inchoate, in part, and this was true to how I addressed all the questions, because faculty and students immediately located the weak links in my argument, or rather, the intriguing left-unsaid areas, which require further development. I was grateful for the feedback.





Later that same day, I had a chance to circle back with Cymene, Dominic, and Eugenia “Nia” Georges, Chair, Department of Anthropology, when they invited me to dinner at Pondicheri, a South Asian restaurant where I ordered a lamb burger with salad. I really wanted to order the lamb burger and with Nia’s prodding, went ahead with gusto. It was delicious. Finally, in addition to the meetings I mention below, there were a handful of superb chats with Rice Department of Anthropology graduate students, whose names and projects I will leave unmentioned out of respect for the openly liminal space we enjoyed when just brainstorming over method. It was method that I most enjoyed discussing with them, so many cool projects in so many different areas, Iran, Haiti, Brazil, China.

Hyper-Objectivity and Issues of Scale

9/19: I had the uncanny good fortune of meeting up with Derek Woods, CENHS Pre-doctoral Fellow, at the Brochstein Pavillion at 11AM. We discussed his recent interest in terraforming fantasies combined with technical prediction and the biosphere — resulting in a dispersal (emptying out) of agency — when shifted up to scale.


Interesting indeed. The Anthropocene.

Terraform the world that we want – extending the privilege of the liberal subject of the economist, toward shaping the world that we enjoy. A customization logic of autonomy. What resource level dimensions we might imagine, including placticity – making food out of waste and, well, turning matter into anything. The alchemist’s return or as Derek would have it, a “Rumpelstiltskin logic” — Life as surplus (Melinda Cooper) overcomes a world of Limits to Growth.

Global Gas Development

9/18: I had a good talk with Ken Medlock III, newly appointed Director, Rice Center for Energy Studies at Baker Institute. Ken knows oodles on global gas developments as he replaces previous energy guru Amy Jaffe, the latter having moved to UC Davis.


After exchanging a few notes on background experience, I was able to pose a few questions concerning the relationship of frontier developments to shale gas as well as global formations in America, Europe, and Asia, the primary self-enclosed markets.


Ken graciously allowed me to photograph him for my upcoming energy guru photo album post (coming soon here on Paparazzi–Ethnography) — to include my notable meet-and-greets with Cambridge Energy‘s Daniel Yergin taken during Russia’s St.Petersburg Economic Forum; Oxford Energy Institute‘s Jonathan Stern while attending Norway’s Oslo Energy Forum, Skolkovo Energy Center‘s Tatiana Mitrova when participating at the Moscow Russian Gas Petroleum Congress; Fridtijof Nansen Institute’s Arild Moe at the Norwegian Research Council Sponsored PETROSAMS meeting; and, Aleksanteri Institute‘s Markku Kivinen in Helsinki.   We strategically posed the photograph to include the hanging portrait of a gas flaring map or perhaps it was the world-at-night photo (upper left). I took a second photo but flinched and managed only to captured an image of Ken’s shoes (lower right), which I include at any rate.



“Majors sold out Permian basin – mature areas, and wanted the capital projects in the Arctic.”




The above is a quote that says it all. Essentially, the Major oil companies turned out their mature supply areas in favor of developing elephant fields with high capital costs, and in the intervening time that it took to ramp up the plans for developing North American Arctic and/or LNG imports through the regulatory process, natural gas prices collapsed on shale development by the independents (who had stepped in to clean up the so-called declining regions left behind the majors), catalyzing a shift by the majors back to the traditional supply areas.

9/17: Lunch today with Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, CENHS Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Local Foods Restaurant on Dunstan in Rice village. Great place, though I must say that, by the time of my arrival, having walked there through the humidity, I was completely wet with perspiration.


We had a good discussion, just getting to know where each of us is headed.

Also, interestingly, Matt’s book is coming out soon on U Chicago Press, on the theme of Peak Oil, from what I gather, having looked at it from the perspective of the folks who consider petroleums a finite resource, and act accordingly based on a set of emotions directly linked to limits associated with everyday use of oil. Fascinating subject.