Anticipatory Environmental (Hi)Stories from Antiquity to the Anthropocene studies the interplay of environmental perception and the way societies throughout history have imagined the future state of "nature" and the environments in which coming generations would live. What sorts of knowledge were and are involved in outlining future environments? What kinds of texts and narrative strategies were and are developed and modified over time? How did and do scenarios and narratives of the past shape (hi)stories of the future? This book answers these questions from a diachronic as well as a cross-cultural perspective. It offers an overview of anticipatory environmental (hi)stories and seeks the historical roots of the imagined, emergent worlds of the Anthropocene. By looking at a diverse range of historical evidence that transcends stereotypical utopian and dystopian visions and allows for nuanced insights beyond the dichotomous reservoir of pastoral motifs and apocalyptic narratives, the contributors illustrate the multifaceted character of environmental anticipation across the ages.
Christopher Schliephake is senior lecturer in ancient history at the University of Augsburg. Evi Zemanek is full professor of comparative media studies at the Institute for Media and Cultural Studies, University of Freiburg.
Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Anticipating Environmental Futures Beyond Pastoral and Apocalyptic Visions Christopher Schliephake and Evi Zemanek Part I. Dialogues Between Times and Places Chapter 1. Experience and Expectations: Hesiod on Work, Justice, and Environment Astrid Moeller Chapter 2. Ancient Geographies of Health and Environmental Acumen: An Anticipatory Narrative in Galen (Method of Healing V, 12) Caroline Petit Chapter 3. The Past Is a Foreign Environment: Some Observations on Roman Wetland Drainage in Ancient and Modern Discourse Jasmin Hettinger Chapter 4. Future Imperfect in Edmund Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender (1579) Diana G. Barnes Chapter 5. Retrospective Prophecy in Contemporary Maya Literature: Chim Bacab's Flower of Memory Charles M. Pigott Part II. Extinction and Conservation Chapter 6. Feeling Like a Species: The Environmental Future in Lucretius Richard Hutchins Chapter 7. Anticipating Multispecies Thinking in Plutarch's Animal Treatises Christopher Schliephake Chapter 8. William Temple Hornaday's Haunting Vision of a Wildlife Apocalypse Gregory J. Dehler Chapter 9. Anticipating Extinction: Mammoths, Elephants, and the Late-19th-Century Ivory Trade Rebecca J. H. Woods Chapter 10. Narrating Civilizational Collapse in the Anthropocene: Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway's The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future (2014) Lena Pfeifer Part III. Urban Environments Chapter 11. Sensing Noise, Sensing Space: Environmental Perceptions and the Impact on Future Urban Space in Germany and the United Kingdom (1900-1930) Heiner Stahl Chapter 12. The Arcologies of Paolo Soleri: Unbuilt Futures from the Past Serge Leopold Middendorf Chapter 13. Utopia's User Interface: Geoengineering, Smart Cities, and Glass Life in Niklas Maak's Novel Technophoria Helga G. Braunbeck Part IV. Climate(s) and Materialities Chapter 14. Solastalgia, Future Memory, and Polluted Landscapes in Lucan's Bellum Civile 7 Darrel Janzen Chapter 15. Nuclear Winter: Science, Fiction, and Temporal Violence James Dunk Chapter 16. 'Nature in Order' or Human Agency? Visions of the Future in the Long Nineteenth-Century Newspaper Climate Change Discourse Falko Schnicke Chapter 17. Explaining Climate Change and Predicting Its Impacts: The Popularization of Bruckner's Theory on Climate Variations as an Anticipatory Narrative Karolin Wetjen Chapter 18. Ecology in a Loop: Cyclical History and Alternative Epistemologies in Ella Hickson's Oil Martin Riedelsheimer and Leila Michelle Vaziri About the Contributors
