Drill, Baby, Drill!

• The event will be held in English / The event will take place in English without translation.
• As part of the series “Masculinity.Power.USA – On Tech Bros and Boys’ Clubs”
• in cooperation with the Federal Agency for Civic Education
• in cooperation with TU Dresden as part of the conference “Petrocultures 2026: Situating Energy”

“Petro-masculinity” refers to the contemporary convergence of nostalgic attachments to fossil fuels and the aggressive defense of patriarchal orders. Coined by the American political philosopher Cara New Daggett in 2018, two years into Trump’s first term, the term addresses how climate denial and hypermasculine performance have become defining elements of new authoritarian movements. This evening opens a conversation about the underlying forces linking authoritarian desire, patriarchal power, and fossil-fuel culture. What role do fossil fuels play in the production of cultural values and gendered social relations? Why is car culture so often tied to the objectification of women? What historical developments link the combustion of fossil fuels to images of masculinity? And how does this connection shape the right-wing backlash against climate policy, renewable energy, and gender studies? “Petro-masculinity” suggests that the energy transition also requires a reckoning with toxic gender relations, reminding us that energy systems are always also cultural systems. Much has happened since the concept was coined in 2018. We want to explore how it resonates today, how it applies beyond the United States, and how it helps us confront the cultural dimensions of contemporary energy regimes.

Guests:

Cara New Daggett is a political philosopher whose research explores energy and ecological politics through an intersectional feminist framework. She is an affiliate faculty member in political science at Virginia Tech and the author of the award-winning book *The Birth of Energy: Fossil Fuels, Thermodynamics, and the Politics of Work*. Currently, she is a fellow at the Futures of Sustainability Center at the University of Hamburg.
Moderator: Dr. Moritz Ingwersen, Assistant Professor of North American Literature with a focus on Future Studies, Dresden University of Technology
 

About the Series

"Masculinity.Power.USA

on tech bros and boys’ clubs"

A series of events in cooperation with the Federal Agency for Civic Education

What do new images of masculinity, political developments in the U.S., and the unrelenting thirst for oil have in common? In our series “Masculinity.Power.USA – on tech bros and boys’ clubs,” we aim to explore the ideological interconnections between hypermasculine worldviews, capitalism, and current U.S. politics. We examine the ideologies of neo-reactionary thinkers and ask why their “dark Enlightenment” was able to seep not only into the corridors of power in Silicon Valley but ultimately take hold in the White House as well. We analyze the phenomenon of “petromasculinity” and why male identity perceives climate protection as a threat and thus calls all the more loudly for the defense of fossil fuels. Amid Bitcoin hype and fantasies of masculinity, we examine whether cryptocurrencies truly promise freedom. And last but not least, we take a look at how patriarchal violence operates in politics, the economy, and society—and how, as exemplified by the Epstein case, it is inextricably intertwined, as if under a magnifying glass.

All Dates

Wed, August 19, 7:00 p.m. 
The Minds Behind MAGA: Intellectual Lineages of Neo-Reactionary Thought

Tue, August 25, 7 p.m.
Drill, Baby, Drill! A Conversation on Petro-Masculinity 

Tue, September 1, 7:00 p.m.
Crypto, Crisis, Cult? Bitcoin Between Emancipation and Fantasies of Masculinity

Wed, September 15, 7:00 p.m.
The Epstein Files: Within the Network of Patriarchal Violence