Funding Sources: John S. Guggenheim Fellowship and Franklin Research Grant (American Philosophical Society) — Turner’s current research reconsiders the arc of modern energy history. In a world powered by combustion and dependent upon finite energy resources, environmental solutions have been predicated on conservation, efficiency, and limits. His research aims to rewrite energy history, framing fossil fuels as the culmination of the combustion era — an era we increasingly understand to be unnatural, unhealthy, and unsustainable — and argues that the history of electrification has much to teach us about the possibilities for a more just, humane, and sustainable energy future that can offer new solutions to our most urgent environmental challenges.

Faculty: Jay Turner
Department: Environmental Studies
Funding Sources: John S. Guggenheim Fellowship and Franklin Research Grant (American Philosophical Society)