Читать книгу Solar Politics - Oxana Timofeeva - Страница 6

I have been doing research on Georges Bataille’s writings for quite a while, since I was a student; however, his idea of the general, or, to be more precise, solar economy was never really the focus of my interest until the Spring of 2020, when the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic bluntly intervened in my research plans.

I have to thank Imre Szeman and Allan Stoekl, whose work led me to believe that the idea of discussing Bataille today in terms of ecology and energy politics is not insane. Further reflections made me desire to write a philosophical essay on the sun, which I thought I would endlessly postpone, but, luckily, I was contacted by Laurent de Sutter, to whom I am thankful for his kind invitation to collaborate in Polity’s “Theory Redux” series. I am also grateful to John Thompson and the Polity editorial board for valuable tips regarding the initial project; Jeff Diamanti, Benjamin Noys, and Artemy Magun for their comments and critical remarks; Alexander Klose, Benjamin Steiniger, and the “Beauty of oil” collective for insights; Oleg Kharkhordin for not forgetting the Earth, Alexey Zygmont for encouraging me to carry out research on violence, and the students of the Stasis Center for Philosophy at the European University at St. Petersburg, Andrew Glukhovsky, Alexey Sergienko, and Michail Fedorchenko, for their suggestions. I wish to express my gratitude to my family, and to my beloved husband Andrew Zmeul, with whom I was sharing initial drafts and ideas, for his amusing excurses into the perspectives of future technological developments of human and posthuman civilizations. Finally, my thanks are due to the comrade sun, who – even in St. Petersburg, where it is usually a rare guest – was so generous during the months when I was writing this book.