Our current energy crisis, one of abundance, has mobilised scholars to address the consequences of human energy exploitation. Amid this ‘energy turn’, scholarship has tended toward the analysis of our current energy predicament by focusing on contemporary phenomena such fracking, coal phase-outs, or climate change. However, there is a long history of thinking and writing about energy and society in a broader sense: Pondering the economic and technological changes of their time, previous scholarship speaks of 'natural forces', transitions and progress, or the relation between resources and economic growth. As our understanding of the concept of energy, and its dynamics and effects, have altered over time, the relation between energy and society has been reconceived. The aim of this research endeavour is to map out the history of energy and the humanities by bringing a group of scholars to Berlin to workshop an edited collection of primary sources and short commentary essays to produce an authoritative account of the intellectual history of energy in the humanities. By thus showing the historical mutability of relations between energy and society, our aim is to open up possible paths of contemporary energy futures.