Imre Szeman

Imre Szeman (born 26 July 1968) is a Canadian cultural theorist, professor, and public intellectual.

He is Director of the Institute for Environment, Conservation, and Sustainability and Professor of Human Geography at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

He began doctoral studies under Fredric Jameson at Duke University in 1993, where he completed a Ph.D. in literature in 1998.

[12] The starting point for this work, and for the analysis of “petroculture,” is Szeman’s question: “What if oil is fundamental to the societies we have now?”[13] Szeman’s work has dealt with the problem of the representation of oil and energy, the ways in which forms of energy shape cultural forms, expectations, and values, and role of the humanities in discussions of climate change and energy transition.

[18] He has received the John Polanyi Prize in Literature (2000), the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation Fellowship (2005), a Killiam Annual Professorship (2013), the J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Excellence in Research (2015), and the Arts Award for Excellence in Research (U Waterloo).