Future Remains
A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Gregg Mitman, Marco Armiero, and Robert S. Emmett
The Anthropocene: The Promise and Pitfalls of an Epochal Idea
Rob Nixon
Hubris
Anthropocene in a Jar
Tomas Matza and Nicole Heller
Concretes Speak
Rachel Harkness, Cristián Simonetti, and Judith Winter
The Age of (a) Man
Joseph Masco
The Manual Pesticide Spray Pump
Michelle Mart and Cameron Muir
Hubris or Humility: Genealogies of the Anthropocene
Gregg Mitman
Living and Dying
Huia Echoes
Julianne Lutz Warren
Snarge
Gary Kroll
Marine Animal Satellite Tags
Nils Hanwahr
Artificial Coral Reef
Josh Wodak
Freezing Life in the Anthropocene
Elizabeth Hennessy
Racism and the Anthropocene
Laura Pulido
Sabotaging the Anthropocene; or, In the Praise of Mutiny
Marco Armiero
Laboring
On Possibility; or, The Monkey Wrench
Daegan Miller
The German Calico Quilt
Bethany Wiggin
Anthropocene Aesthetics
Robert S. Emmett
Making
The Mirror—Testing the Counter-Anthropocene
Sverker Sörlin
Objects from Anna Schwartz’s Cabinet of Curiosities
Judit Hersko
Technofossil
Jared Farmer
Davies Creek Road
Trisha Carroll and Mandy Martin
Anthropocene Cabinets of Curiosity: Objects of Strange Change
Libby Robin
Contributors
Preface
Gregg Mitman, Marco Armiero, and Robert S. Emmett
The Anthropocene: The Promise and Pitfalls of an Epochal Idea
Rob Nixon
Hubris
Anthropocene in a Jar
Tomas Matza and Nicole Heller
Concretes Speak
Rachel Harkness, Cristián Simonetti, and Judith Winter
The Age of (a) Man
Joseph Masco
The Manual Pesticide Spray Pump
Michelle Mart and Cameron Muir
Hubris or Humility: Genealogies of the Anthropocene
Gregg Mitman
Living and Dying
Huia Echoes
Julianne Lutz Warren
Snarge
Gary Kroll
Marine Animal Satellite Tags
Nils Hanwahr
Artificial Coral Reef
Josh Wodak
Freezing Life in the Anthropocene
Elizabeth Hennessy
Racism and the Anthropocene
Laura Pulido
Sabotaging the Anthropocene; or, In the Praise of Mutiny
Marco Armiero
Laboring
On Possibility; or, The Monkey Wrench
Daegan Miller
The German Calico Quilt
Bethany Wiggin
Anthropocene Aesthetics
Robert S. Emmett
Making
The Mirror—Testing the Counter-Anthropocene
Sverker Sörlin
Objects from Anna Schwartz’s Cabinet of Curiosities
Judit Hersko
Technofossil
Jared Farmer
Davies Creek Road
Trisha Carroll and Mandy Martin
Anthropocene Cabinets of Curiosity: Objects of Strange Change
Libby Robin
Contributors
Review Quotes
Environmental 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.”
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.”
Times Literary Supplement
“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.”
Human Ecology
“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.”
Donna Haraway, author of Staying with the Trouble
“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.”
Iain McCalman, author of The Reef: A Passionate History
“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.”
Ecozona: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment
“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.”
For more information, or to order this book, please visit https://press.uchicago.edu
Google preview here
History: Environmental History | History of Technology
You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.