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As early as the beginning of the new millennium,interests in material culture,objects,and things have appeared in scholars’research.Bill Brown does research onmaterials and attempts to search for a sense of things and literary life of things,promoting the“material turn”in the field of western literary critics.Brown holds theidea that“we can look through the objects to see what they disclose about history,society,nature,and culture—above all,what they disclose about us”(4)in“OtherThings”.In his view,objects are considered cultural symbols from which humans arecapable of knowing more about our cultural identity and our society.Furthermore,anumber of scholars not only draw attention to things but also dig into the power ofthings or the agency of things.Ian Woodward points out that“Studies of materialculture have as their primary concern the mutual relations between people and objects toand do for,and to,people”(14).She reveals how humans and things affect each other.The things in humans’daily life do not just serve people,but they are able to affectpeople.In Bruno Latour’s actor network theory,he emphasizes all existences areequally“actors”or“actants”,which are“anything that does modify a state of affairs bymaking a difference”(71).Just like in the mesh,all living and non-living things exist onthe same planet and influence each other.In this way,Bruno Latour reveals non-livingthings’ability to affect humans.His arguments emphasize non-living things areendowed with complexity and agency,even if they may not coincide with humannotions of life(Liebermann 9).In effect,whether humans notice it or not,things indeedplay significant roles in human life.Jane Bennett echoes Latour’s view,and she assertsthe“thing power”:“the curious ability of inanimate things to animate,to act,to produceeffects dramatic and subtle”(6).Jane Bennett does not deny the power of humans.Instead,she emphasizes that human beings have to pay more heed to things.

B.Petroleum as a Toxic Element

Humans are confronted with all kinds of challenges and crises in the Anthropocene.The energy crisis is one of those.Scholars are devoted to seeking moreenvironment-friendly energy while paying more attention to the environmentalproblems caused by harmful energy such as petroleum.They also attempt to figure outhow to reduce the negative impacts the energy has.In effect,since Rachel Carson paidattention to the harmful effects of pesticides,which were first used to control the insectsin agriculture in Silent Spring,more and more scholars have revealed the terribleinfluences the poisonous energy has brought to humans,especially after the industrialrevolution.The environmental problems caused by petroleum are no less than thepesticides,and more attention is required.

With the deterioration of the environment and the rise of environmental humanities,energy research in the field of humanities also appeared at the end of the 20th century.In2014,Canadian scholar Imre Szeman and American scholar Dominick Boyer,for thefirst time,named this new interdisciplinary research field energy humanities.Humanslive and breathe with petroleum,and all our lives are related to petroleum in modernsociety.For a long time,petroleum has been an indispensable part of human history and culture,but now it is time to reflect on what bad effects it brings to our environment andespecially ourselves.One of the most devastating environmental crise本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。