Fossil fuels don’t just power our world – they shape it. Oil, gas, and coal account for three quarters of global energy consumption, and Central Europe is no exception. These fuels move us, drive our economies, structure our daily lives. Over generations, they have seeped into something far deeper: our identities, our imaginaries, our sense of what is normal and what is possible.
Starting in May 2026, the event series CarbonCulturesxCE sets out to explore exactly these entanglements – between fossil energy and culture in Central Europe. Through lectures, readings, performances, and other formats, the series traces the roots, expressions, and excesses of what might be called the Central European petromodern condition. How did the beginnings of petromodernity in Central Europe look like? What does it mean to live, think, and feel inside a fossil-fuelled civilisation today? And what would it take to imagine, and build, something different?
The series kicks off on May 4th with a guest lecture by PD Dr. Philipp Kohl (LMU Munich) on Bohemia at the primordial sea, tracing how geology and nationalism became unlikely bedfellows in 19th-century Central Europe.
The event series is organized and hosted by Asst. Prof. Dr. Anna Seidel from the Institute for Slavonic Studies at the University of Vienna, in cooperation with the Vienna Anthropocene Network.
Upcoming Sessions:
- May 4, 2026 – Guest Lecture by PD Dr. Philipp Kohl (LMU Munich): “Bohemia at the Primeval Sea: The Popular Geology of the Czech National Movement” (in German)
