This book brings the emerging field of petrocultures and energy humanities discourse into conversation with the field of animal studies. Taylor examines how fossil fuels have frequently been described as the lifeblood of capitalist modernity, making petroleum appear as something intrinsic to human life. Through examining works such as Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon and Michel Faber’s Under the Skin, this book highlights the commodification of nonhuman life in the history of energy and, paradoxically, how these nonhuman actors have been unacknowledged and silenced through time.

Josephine Taylor is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University College Dublin, Ireland, where she works on the Energy Narratives and Change in Coastal Communities in Ireland project. She undertook her PhD research at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, in Comparative Literature and Culture. Her research specialisations are interdisciplinary in scope, exploring areas of feminism, science fiction, energy cultures and animal studies.