260 - Pipeline Cinema (feat. Mona Damluji)

Your cohosts' electric summer adventure has brought them to Thailand! Dominic wonders if he will be allowed to eat Thai spicy food and Cymene reports about feeding baby elephants. Then (13:44) we welcome Mona Damluji to the podcast to discuss her new book, Pipeline Cinema: The Cultural Infrastructure of Oil Extraction in Iran and Iraq (U California Press, 2025) available as open access and paperback. We begin with how Mona discovered her own great grandfather in the archive of oil's cultural workers. Then we turn to the entangled histories of Iran, Iraq and Anglo-American petroimperialism. Mona tells us about how the physical infrastructure of oil impacted the cultural infrastructure of filmmaking in the region, how the oil industry sought to make itself inevitable to the story of modernization, the life stories of the culture workers themselves and much, much more. We close with a discussion of the enduring allure of petromodernity. Check out Sanaz Sohrabi's incredible films here: https://www.sanaz-sohrabi.com/. And please also check out Mona's children's books on collective action, war and displacement, Together and I Want You to Know. Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.