Into the Multiverse: Strategies for Teaching Social Studies of Energy at a Technical University

In this essay, I present the learning goals and teaching strategies for “Social Studies of Energy,” a class I developed and implemented during a phase of personal transition between different educational contexts. By “multiverse,” I refer to my perception of multiple universes of expert knowledge, terminology, interests, and priorities, all coexisting but not necessarily interacting or exchanging with each other in relation to the ambiguous signifier “energy.” These universes of expertise have their own scholarly journals, key definitions, and central intellectual heroes; some include forms of activism in which personal experience, knowledge, and commitment are at least as central as insights gained through formal education. The coexistence of mutually incompatible forms of energy expertise presents teaching challenges. I describe how I decided my scope of inclusivity while designing “Social Studies of Energy” and how I managed associated risks of conceptual, political, and ontological incoherence. Results are relevant for teachers aiming to maintain and expand academic habitats for advanced qualitative reasoning pertaining to engineering and energy studies.