Imre Szeman is University Research Chair and Professor of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He conducts research on and teaches in the areas of energy humanities, environmental studies, critical and cultural theory, social and political philosophy, and Canadian studies.
Szeman is the recipient of the John Polanyi Prize in Literature (2000), the Petro-Canada Young Innovator Award (2003), the Scotiabank-AUCC Award for Excellence in Internationalization (2004), an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (2005-7), the President’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision at McMaster University (2008), a Killam Annual Professorship (2013), and the J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Excellence in Research (2015), the U of Alberta’s most prestigious research award that recognizes research excellence in humanities, social sciences, law, education and fine arts. He is the founder of the Canadian Association of Cultural Studies and a founding member of the US Cultural Studies Association. Szeman is also co-founder of the Petrocultures Research Group and the founder and director of Banff Research in Culture.
Szeman’s books include: Pierre Bourdieu: Fieldwork in Culture (co-ed, 2000), Zones of Instability: Literature, Postcolonialism and the Nation (2003), Popular Culture: A User’s Guide (co-author, 2003; 2nd ed. 2009; 3rd ed. 2013 ; 4th ed. 2017 ; International ed. 2017 ); The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism (co-ed, 2006); Canadian Cultural Studies: A Reader (co-ed, 2009); Global-Local Consumption (co-ed, 2010); Cultural Autonomy: Frictions and Connections (co-ed. 2010); Cultural Theory: An Anthology (co-ed, 2010); After Globalization (co-author, 2011); Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory: A Johns Hopkins Guide (co-ed, 2012); Contemporary Marxist Theory: An Anthology (co-ed, 2014); After Oil (co-author, 2016); A Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory (co-ed, 2017); Fueling Culture: 101 Words for Energy and Environment (co-ed, 2017); Petrocultures: Oil, Politics, and Culture (co-ed, 2017); Energy Humanities: An Anthology (co-ed, 2017); and The Bloomsbury Companion to Marx (2018). Forthcoming books include On Petrocultures: Globalization, Culture, and Energy (2019) and Energy Culture: Art and Theory on Oil and Beyond (2019).