Dispatches from Horizon A Junior Researchers in Anglo-American Studies Newsletter May 2026

Abstract

Time capsules are, typically, physical containers storing several items pertaining to the period in which they were created and meant to be opened in the future. The term “time capsule” was only coined in the first half of the 20th century, but some of the retrieved caches date as far back as the 1700s. Many institutions, such as NASA and MIT, have created and/or helped to store these containers in various places (including on the moon), but many time capsules are domestic projects. While not always built for research purposes, these items have helped historians and anthropologists understand the cultural memory of certain eras. As CETAPS is concerned with cultural sustainability, the JRAAS team decided to explore some works of fiction that function as time capsules themselves. In the spirit of this month’s theme, we have divided the newsletter into three chronological sections: The first one, “Rewind”, recaps the first quarter of the 21st century through a curated selection of 19th and 20th century Anglo-American media set between 2000 and 2025, therefore predicting futures now past—sometimes rather accurately, other times less so. In the “Pause” segment, we have included JRAAS’ very own time capsule. Mirroring the first segment, “Fast-Forward” addresses future representations through works from the past 25 years which speculate on what one may hope to expect (or in some cases hope not to expect) from the three remaining quarters of the 21st century. [Editorial by Jamie Santos]