Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services
University of Chicago Press
Book
Licensed
Unlicensed
Requires Authentication
Future Remains
A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene
-
Edited by:
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2018
About this book
What can a pesticide pump, a jar full of sand, or an old calico print tell us about the Anthropocene—the age of humans? Just as paleontologists look to fossil remains to infer past conditions of life on earth, so might past and present-day objects offer clues to intertwined human and natural histories that shape our planetary futures. In this era of aggressive hydrocarbon extraction, extreme weather, and severe economic disparity, how might certain objects make visible the uneven interplay of economic, material, and social forces that shape relationships among human and nonhuman beings?
Future Remains is a thoughtful and creative meditation on these questions. The fifteen objects gathered in this book resemble more the tarots of a fortuneteller than the archaeological finds of an expedition—they speak of planetary futures. Marco Armiero, Robert S. Emmett, and Gregg Mitman have assembled a cabinet of curiosities for the Anthropocene, bringing together a mix of lively essays, creatively chosen objects, and stunning photographs by acclaimed photographer Tim Flach. The result is a book that interrogates the origins, implications, and potential dangers of the Anthropocene and makes us wonder anew about what exactly human history is made of.
Future Remains is a thoughtful and creative meditation on these questions. The fifteen objects gathered in this book resemble more the tarots of a fortuneteller than the archaeological finds of an expedition—they speak of planetary futures. Marco Armiero, Robert S. Emmett, and Gregg Mitman have assembled a cabinet of curiosities for the Anthropocene, bringing together a mix of lively essays, creatively chosen objects, and stunning photographs by acclaimed photographer Tim Flach. The result is a book that interrogates the origins, implications, and potential dangers of the Anthropocene and makes us wonder anew about what exactly human history is made of.
Author / Editor information
Gregg Mitman is the Vilas Research and William Coleman Professor of History of Science, Medical History, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape Our Lives and Landscapes and coeditor of Documenting the World: Film, Photography, and the Scientific Record, the latter also published by the University of Chicago Press. Marco Armiero is associate professor of environmental history and the director of the Environmental Humanities Lab at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. He is the author of A Rugged Nation: Mountains and the Making of Italy and coeditor of Nature and History in Modern Italy and A History of Environmentalism: Local Struggles, Global Histories. Robert S. Emmett is visiting assistant professor of environmental studies at Roanoke College, Virginia. He is the author of Cultivating Environmental Justice: A Literary History of US Garden Writing.
Reviews
“Objects, cabinets, remains: here is an assembling of wonders from a damaged planet, brought together in order to cultivate the arts of remembering effectively, so as to care seriously, to care for, to care with. Each essay is a provocation to curiosity in the sense of incitement to feel, know, care, and respond. Writing and images converge to make objects present so as to render remaining futures vital.”
— Donna Haraway, author of Staying with the Trouble“This book addresses the vexing issues posed by the Anthropocene—the idea that humans have become a bio-physical force of nature—in an excitingly original way by showing how the material objects of our time will one day become uncanny future fossils. Its imaginative sweep feels as futuristic as science fiction, yet each object is located deftly within its historical and contemporary context. The contributors make up a who’s who of modern scholarship. It should become the go-to book for understanding the implications and significance of the most challenging idea and problem of our time.”
— Iain McCalman, author of The Reef: A Passionate History“Evocative. . .A brief review cannot do justice to all that these haunting Anthropocene objects and their accompanying essays say about the future. The essays offer strikingly original and often lyrical meditations
on the ecological and moral tragedies of the Anthropocene as well as the possibilities for creative adaptation and radical hope. The collection’s considerable literary merits are complemented by the aesthetic
beauty of the photographs by Tim Flach. This book compels the reader to ponder the material, intellectual, and moral experiences of the Anthropocene and is richly deserving of a wide readership in the academy and beyond.”
— Environmental Historyon the ecological and moral tragedies of the Anthropocene as well as the possibilities for creative adaptation and radical hope. The collection’s considerable literary merits are complemented by the aesthetic
beauty of the photographs by Tim Flach. This book compels the reader to ponder the material, intellectual, and moral experiences of the Anthropocene and is richly deserving of a wide readership in the academy and beyond.”
“A significant take on an important yet somewhat nebulous concept, surveying as it does a variety of ways in which people have used or reshaped the planet and its material wealth.”
— Times Literary Supplement“In this collection of essays edited by Gregg Mitman, Marco Armiero, and Robert S. Emmett, objects take center stage and are enlivened with clever metaphor and meaning to narrate the tale of the Anthropocene. Each object presented in this volume is intricately interconnected to place, space, and time, and to the larger planetary scale within which scholars are increasingly starting to explore. . . . Each essay is well written, some are in an almost poetic prose, while others present as personal stories or dialogues, but each tells its own material journey into the Anthropocene.”
— Human Ecology“Future Remains explores the ways in which scholarship and art can come together to experiment with the consequences of thinking the oxymoronic power and powerlessness of humans entailed by the implications of an age of humans. It is able to both eulogize and mock the losses and aspirations that the anthropogenic illusion of control has brought about the planet. . . . It should be read as an invitation to start collecting by asking objects for their stories, their specific entanglements with humans and nature and, hence, to contribute object stories to this Wunderkammer in the hope that it is more alive than it might seem at first glance.”
— Ecozona: European Journal of Literature, Culture and EnvironmentTopics
-
Download PDFPublicly Available
Frontmatter
i -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Contents
iv -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Acknowledgments
vii -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Preface
ix -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
The Anthropocene: The Promise and Pitfalls of an Epochal Idea
1 - Hubris
-
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Anthropocene in a Jar
21 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Concretes Speak: A Play in One Act
29 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
The Age of (a) Man
40 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
The Manual Pesticide Spray Pump
50 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Hubris or Humility? Genealogies of the Anthropocene
59 - Living and Dying
-
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Huia Echoes
71 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Snarge
81 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Marine Animal Satellite Tags
89 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Artificial Coral Reef
99 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Cryogenic Freezer Box
108 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Racism and the Anthropocene
116 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Sabotaging the Anthropocene; or, In Praise of Mutiny
129 - Laboring
-
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
On Possibility; or, The Monkey Wrench
143 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
The Germantown Calico Quilt
149 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Anthropocene Aesthetics
159 - Making
-
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
The Mirror— Testing the Counter- Anthropocene
169 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Objects from Anna Schwartz’s Cabinet of Curiosities
182 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Technofossil
191 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Davies Creek Road
200 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Anthropocene Cabinets of Curiosity: Objects of Strange Change
205 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Contributors
219
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
September 21, 2020
eBook ISBN:
9780226508825
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9780226508825
Keywords for this book
Anthropocene; Climate Change; Extinction; Environmental Justice; Wunderkammern
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
