Part I of the conversation between Vicky Googasian and Santiago Acosta, a Postdoctoral Fellow at SUNY-Old Westbury about Venezuelan oil literature, about his work on a book project entitled, "We Are Like Oil: An Ecology of the Venezuelan Culture Boom, 1973-1983."

Santiago Acosta is a scholar and poet working at the intersections of literature, visual culture, and political ecology. He holds a Ph.D. in Latin American and Iberian Cultures from Columbia University and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at SUNY-Old Westbury. His book project, "We Are Like Oil: An Ecology of the Venezuelan Culture Boom, 1973-1983", examines the relationship between the visual arts, cultural institutions, and state-led ecological transformations in Venezuela during the 1970s oil boom. His poetry collection El próximo desierto (The coming desert) won the 2018 José Emilio Pacheco Literature Prize “City and Nature,” awarded by the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) and the Museum of Environmental Sciences of Guadalajara University.