Tuan Nguyen (G’27) is a student at Georgetown University in Qatar, majoring in culture and politics with a concentration on energy, environment, and empire. Their experience includes a nine-month research project with Singapore’s Ministry of Sustainability on natural gas politics in ASEAN amid South China Sea tensions. Their graphic novel The Electricity’s Curse explores intergenerational trauma of hydropower development in Vietnam; it will be exhibited at Qatar National Museum in 2025. An ASEAN Youth Officer for Plan International’s Gender and Climate Action program, Tuan applies a transnational lens to storytelling in queer ecology and postcolonial resistance. They are a fall 2025 Georgetown Global Dialogues student fellow.
Essay
I have long been seduced by the sleek lines of spaceships and the promise of interstellar travel. As a child of science fiction, I grew up mesmerized by the spectacle of energy—thrusters flaring, galaxies conquered, time compressed into velocity. But…
