Imagining Solar Energy: The Power of the Sun in Literature, Science and Culture

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Shortlisted for the 2022 ESSE Book Awards How has humanity sought to harness the power of the Sun, and what roles have literature, art and other cultural forms played in imagining, mythologizing and reflecting the possibilities of solar energy What stories have been told about solar technologies, and how have these narratives shaped developments in science and culture What can solar powers history tell us about its future, within a world adapting to climate crisis Identifying the history of capturing solar radiance as a focal point between science and the imagination, Imagining Solar Energy argues that the literary, artistic and mythical resonances of solar power from the Renaissance to the present day have not only been inspired by, but have also cultivated and sustained its scientific and technological development. Ranging from Archimedes to Isaac Asimov, John Dee to Humphry Davy, Aphra Behn to J. G. Ballard, the book argues that solar energy translates into many different kinds of power (physical, political, intellectual and cultural), and establishes for the first time the importance of solar energy to many literary and scientific endeavours.

Reviews

Greg Lynalls Imagining Solar Energy is worth every metaphor of sunlight a reader might consider. It is a dazzling achievement: an intellectual highlight of recent literature and science scholarship that illuminates so much of our imaginative relationship to the sun across a stretch of time from the Renaissance to the present moment. Political in its interventions and global in its conceptualisations Imagining Solar Energy is also detailed, exacting, comprehensive. Taking in early seventeenth century pamphlets decrying renewable energy and twenty-first century solarpunk fictions wrestling with climate change Lynall offers a rich collection of entangled scientific, literary and cultural readings of the suns dangerous and restorative power. Striking for its erudition across solar sciences as well as literary periods, it will impress, too, for the eloquence of its environmental interventions. * Martin Willis, Professor of English, Cardiff University, UK *
Imagining Solar Energy brilliantly illuminates our literary and scientific relationship with alternative energy. At a time when many ecocritics are examining the story of fossil fuels ascendancy, Lynall is the first to narrate our quest to harness its originating source: solar power. The high standard of research and astounding chronological scope make this volume a break-through in renewable energy scholarship. Casting a wide arc from Prometheus, Archimedes and the wonder of the technological sublime to photovoltaic cells, death-ray skyscrapers, and solarpunk rebellions, Lynall masterfully intertwines literature, science, and cultural history, including its shades of patriarchy and tyranny. Imagining Solar Energy is a key tool for Anthropocene studies which will shape the future of renewable of energy scholarship for years to come. * Kelly Sultzbach, Associate Professor of English, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, USA *

Author Bio

Gregory Lynall is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Liverpool, UK. He is the author of Swift and Science: The Satire, Politics, and Theology of Natural Knowledge, 1690-1730 (2012).