Anthropocene Readings
Since the 2000s, interest in the Anthropocene has grown significantly and this is reflected in the large number of publications dedicated to the subject. Monographs, journal articles, textbooks, opinion pieces – you will find all kinds of texts on the Anthropocene these days. Here we have put together a list of essential readings to help you get started on your own research.
Books
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Handbook of the Anthropocene
Humans between Heritage and Future
Edited by Nathanaël Wallenhorst and Christoph Wulf (Springer 2023)
Springer -
Altered Earth
Getting the Anthropocene Right
Edited by Julia Adeney Thomas (Cambridge University Press 2022)
Cambridge University Press -
The Anthropocene as a Geological Time Unit
A Guide to the Scientific Evidence and Current Debate
Edited by Jan Zalasiewicz, Colin N. Waters, Mark Williams, and Colin P. Summerhayes (Cambridge University Press 2019)
Cambridge University Press -
The Anthropocene
Key Issues for the Humanities
Eva Horn and Hannes Bergthaller (Routledge 2019)
Routledge
More Books on the Anthropocene
- Field Guide to the Patchy Anthropocene by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena and Feifei Zhou (Stanford University Press 2024)
- How to Live at the End of the World: Theory, Art, and Politics for the Anthropocene by Travis Holloway (Stanford University Press 2022)
- The Anthropocene and the Humanities: From Climate Change to a New Age of Sustainability by Carolyn Merchant (Yale University Press 2020)
- The Birth of the Anthropocene by Jeremy Davies (University of California Press 2018)
- The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene by Simon L. Lewis and Mark A. Maslin (Yale University Press 2018)
- After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene by Jedediah Purdy (Harvard University Press 2018)
- Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene by Clive Hamilton (Wiley 2017)
- The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us by Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz (Verso 2016)
- Ecocriticism on the Edge: The Anthropocene as a Threshold Concept by Timothy Clark (Bloomsbury 2015)
- The Earth After Us: What Legacy will Humans Leave in the Rocks? by Jan Zalasiewicz (Oxford University Press 2009)
Book Chapters
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The Anthropocene and the Convergence of Histories
Dipesh Chakrabarty
In: The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis Rethinking Modernity in a New Epoch (Routledge 2015, edited by Clive Hamilton, François Gemenne, Christophe Bonneuil)
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The Extraordinary Strata of the Anthropocene
Jan Zalasiewicz
In: Environmental Humanities: Voices from the Anthropocene (Rowman & Littlefield 2017, edited by Serpil Oppermann and Serenella Iovino)
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Provincializing the Anthropocene: Eurocentrism in the Earth System
Kathleen D. Morrison
In: At Nature’s Edge: The Global Present and Long-Term History (Oxford University Press 2018, edited by Gunnel Cederlöf and Mahesh Rangarajan)
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Challenges for an Aesthetics of the Anthropocene
Eva Horn
In: The Anthropocenic Turn The Interplay between Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Responses to a New Age (Routledge 2020, edited by Gabriele Dürbeck and Philip Hüpkes)
Journal Articles
- Summerhayes, Colin P. et al. 2024. The Future Extent of the Anthropocene Epoch: A Synthesis. Global and Planetary Chang, 242, 104568. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2024.104568.
- Thomas, Julia A. 2023. The Anthropocene’s Stratigraphic Reality and the Humanities: A Response to Finney and Gibbard (2023) and to Chvostek (2023). Journal of Quaternary Science 39(1), 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.3562.
- Zalasiewicz, Jan, et al. 2021. The Anthropocene: Comparing Its Meaning in Geology (Chronostratigraphy) with Conceptual Approaches Arising in Other Disciplines. Earth's Future 9(3), e2020EF001896. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001896.
- Haraway, Donna. 2015. Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin. Environmental Humanities 6(1), 159–165. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3615934.
- Steffen, Will, et al. 2015. The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, 2(1), 81-98. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019614564785.
- Malm, A. and Hornborg, A. 2014. The Geology of Mankind? A Critique of the Anthropocene Narrative. The Anthropocene Review 1(1), 62-69. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019613516291.
- Rockström, Johan, et al. 2009. Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity. Ecology and Society 14(2): 32. http://www.
ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/. - Crutzen, Paul J., and Stoermer, Eugene F. 2000. The ‘Anthropocene’. Global Change Newsletter 41, 17–18. Available from IGBP.
Resources on the Anthropocene
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Projects
Learn more about ongoing and completed projects by our VAN community and how these inform our research on the Anthropocene.
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Keywords
Explore key concepts and topics in Anthropocene research through the material we have curated here.
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Videos
In our media library you will find video recordings of past lectures, conferences and workshops.