Cultural History and the Anthropocene

Anders Ekström is a Professor in the Department of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University, SwedenMarit Ruge Bjærke is a Researcher in the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, Norway Brita Brenna is a Professor in the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, Oslo University, NorwayJohn Ødemark is Professor in the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, Oslo University, Norway

Cultural Histories of the Anthropocene provides a guide to a new field that remains fertile but is already overgrown with a thicket of specialized terms and insider arguments. It’s comprehensive, but not in the style of a generic textbook; instead, this edited collection provides a distinct perspective on a global phenomenon. The seventeen bite-sized essays represent a complex and ongoing interdisciplinary conversation among the leading Nordic scholars whose work has done so much to make writing critical planetary histories possible. They critically analyze theories, concepts, and methods; reflect on the politics and ethics of writing of the Anthropocene and being a scholar in the Anthropocene; and they provide model ethnographic case studies and close of exhibits and texts. Cultural Histories of the Anthropocene will be a particularly valuable resource in undergraduate and graduate classes in the environmental humanities.

• Introduction: Writing Cultural Histories in the Anthropocene, Marit Ruge Bjærke, Brita Brenna, Anders Ekström, and John ØdemarkPART I: UNLOCKING THE FOUNDATIONS: KEY CONCEPTS IN CULTURAL HISTORY1. Centres of Temporalization: The Tarfala Experience, Anders Ekström2. Fieldwork: Writing (on) a Damaged Planet, Hugo Reinert3. Periodization in Cultural History: From the Enlightenment to the Anthropocene, Helge Jordheim4. Rituals, Environments, and More-Than-Human Relations, Aike P. Rots5. Multitemporality and Cultural History of Science, Staffan Bergwik6. Talking About What Anthropocene? How Conflicting Articulations May Inform Cultural History, Hedda Susanne Molland7. Arctic Heritage: Territory, thing, and the history of it all, Brita BrennaPART II: CASE STUDIES: CULTURAL HISTORIES IN THE ANTHROPOCENE8. Heading for Venus? When Bad Planets Make Good Warnings, Marit Ruge Bjærke9. Giacomo Leopardi in the Anthropocene: Translating the Non-Human from Animals to AI, Marta Arnaldi10. Bounding – Economic Thought for the Anthropocene, Sverker Sörlin and Eric Paglia11. ‘Enlightened Anthropocentrism’ in Early Nineteenth-Century Geology: Henrik Steffens (1773–1845) and Leopold von Buch (1774–1853),Marie-Theres Federhofer12. Anthropocene Volatility. Ethnographic Discussions of Poultry, Frida Hastrup13. Don’t Try to be Human! Goethe’s Challenge of Anthropocentrism in Faust II, Siv Frøydis Berg14. This Thing We Call the Future: The Material Consequences of the Imagination, Bergsveinn Þórsson, Merve Tabur and Bodhisattva ChattopadhyayPART III: INTERVENTIONS: CRITICAL ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN CULTURAL HISTORY AND THE ANTHROPOCENE 15. Silje Opdahl Mathisen and Åsmund Steinsholm: Control: Attempting to Tame the World, Gro Ween16. Narrative Cultures in the Anthropocene: Worldmaking as Active Inference, Dirk Johannsen17. Waiting for the Noösphere: The Cultural History in Crutzen and Stoermer’s ‘The “Anthropocene”’, Åmund Norum Resløkken18. From Worlding the Earth to Earthing the World: The Anthropocene as a New Metaphysics? Clemet Askheim and Trine K. HaagensenCODAAnthropos and Humanitas – Untranslating Cultural History for the Anthropocene,John Ødemark