Deep History Curricula under the Mandate of the Anthropocene

Insights from Interdisciplinary Shadow Places

Abstract

Whilst scientifically debated, the key insights encapsulated in the notion of the Anthropocene are profound: First, natural and cultural history – the fates of climate and the natural world on the one hand, and of humankind and its many cultures on the other – are conjoined. Second, human history is certainly not an inevitable history of progress but one potentially towards catastrophe. These realizations are driven by the wicked perspectives of future climate change and the likelihood of dramatically negative consequences for life on Earth. Looking back into deep history, however, the same realizations also have implications for how we view the human past and what driving forces we view as causal. This, in turn, impinges significantly on how we teach deep and recent history, how we articulate it with other disciplines, and how we display it in children’s books, school textbooks, teaching materials and in museums. With roots firmly in a specific academic discipline – archaeology – I here examine what the topsy-turvy perspective of the Anthropocene implies vis-à-vis the design of contemporary, relevant and sustainable history teaching and teaching resources for the classroom and for learning spaces such as museums. While a collapse of traditional disciplinary boundaries is im-practical if not impossible, I draw on notions of dark pedagogy and disciplinary shadow places to highlight how Anthropocene deep history can connect knowledge domains from across the natural and social sciences. New visions for our future need, I suggest, new visions of our past.