International conference “Oil and Empire”
From April 14–17, the international conference “Oil and Empire: Historical, Cultural, and Political Dimensions of Petroleum in Galicia and Beyond” took place in Vienna and Krakow, exploring the historical, cultural, and political dimensions of the petroleum industry in Galicia and beyond.
The conference was organized by the Research Institute Brenner Archive, University of Innsbruck, in collaboration with the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Over four days, international scholars from the fields of history, literary studies, and cultural studies discussed the relationship between oil, empire, modernity, and the cultural imagination of Galicia as a “European California.”
The programme covered topics ranging from medieval perceptions of oil and infrastructural analyses of pipelines to Galician oil literature, ecological narratives, and global petrofiction. Participants included researchers from Harvard University, University of Warwick, University of Vienna, University of Warsaw, University of Torino, and other international institutions.
A particularly memorable part of the event was the shared train journey between Vienna and Krakow, as well as the excursion to the Ignacy Łukasiewicz Museum of Oil and Gas Industry in Bóbrka — one of the most significant historical sites of the Galician oil industry.
Several conference panels were hosted at the Austrian Consulate General in Krakow, which also provided logistical support for the event. The conference became an important platform for interdisciplinary exchange and new international partnerships at the intersection of the humanities, environmental history, and energy studies.