All tomorrow's cultures: anthropological engagements with the future

150 Pages·2008·0.759 MB·English

by  Collins, Samuel Gerald

All Tomorrow’s Cultures

A T ’ C
LL OMORROW S ULTURES
Anthropological Engagements with the Future
(cid:1)
Samuel Gerald Collins
Berghahn Books
New York • Oxford
First edition published in 2008 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
©2008 Samuel Gerald Collins
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of
criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any infor-
mation storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written
permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Collins, Samuel Gerald.
All tomorrow’s cultures : anthropological engagements with the future / Samuel
Gerald Collins. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-84545-408-1 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Anthropology—Philosophy. 2. Future in popular culture. I. Title.
GN33.C64 2007
301.01—dc22
2007015622
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed in the United States on acid-free paper
ISBN 978-1-84545-408-1 hardback
To my wife, children, and their surprising futures.

Contents
(cid:1)
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: Tomorrow’s Cultures Today? 1
1. Anthropological Time Machines: Setting the Controls
for the Future 12
2. Margaret Mead Answers (About the Future) 27
3. Chad Oliver: An Anthropologist on Star Trek 42
4. Close Encounters of the Anthropological Kind 63
5. Playing Games with Futurology 75
6. The Surprising Future 93
Conclusion: The Open Future 110
References 126
Index 139
vii

Acknowledgements
(cid:1)
Parts of the Introduction and Chapter 5 have been previously published
as “Sail On! Sail On!: Anthropology, Science Fiction and the Enticing Fu-
ture” (2003). Science Fiction Studies 30(2): 180–198; Chapter 3 has been previ-
ously published as “‘Scientifi cally Valid and Artistically True’: Chad Oliver,
Anthropology and Anthropological Science Fiction.” (2004). Science Fiction
Studies 31(2): 243–263. The author would like to thank of editors of Science
Fiction Studies for permission to reprint those essays here.
Chapter 6 has been previously published as “Anthropology, Emergence
and the Shock of the Foregone” (2007). After Culture 1(1). The author would
like to thank the editor of After Culture for permission to reprint the essay
here.
Much of the research for this book has been supported by various Tow-
son University Faculty Development grants, for which the author is eternally
grateful.
Additional thanks go to Reed Riner, Hal Hall and Matthew Wolf-Meyer,
who have all been generous with their time and their ideas.
ix