Anticipatory Environmental (Hi)Stories from Antiquity to the Anthropocene

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.

• ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Anticipating Environmental Futures Beyond Pastoral and Apocalyptic VisionsChristopher Schliephake and Evi ZemanekPart I. Dialogues Between Times and PlacesChapter 1. Experience and Expectations: Hesiod on Work, Justice, and EnvironmentAstrid MöllerChapter 2. Ancient Geographies of Health and Environmental Acumen: An Anticipatory Narrative in Galen (Method of Healing V, 12)Caroline PetitChapter 3. The Past Is a Foreign Environment: Some Observations on Roman Wetland Drainage in Ancient and Modern DiscourseJasmin HettingerChapter 4. Future Imperfect in Edmund Spenser’s The Shepheardes Calender (1579)Diana G. BarnesChapter 5. Retrospective Prophecy in Contemporary Maya Literature: Chim Bacab’s Flower of MemoryCharles M. PigottPart II. Extinction and ConservationChapter 6. Feeling Like a Species: The Environmental Future in LucretiusRichard HutchinsChapter 7. Anticipating Multispecies Thinking in Plutarch’s Animal TreatisesChristophe

This is a rich and thought-provoking collection of essays. It sheds new light on the long history of thinking about environmental futures in a huge range of different periods and contexts. In the process, it opens up some promising future pathways for the environmental humanities.