Author Trevor Owens joins media scholar Shannon Mattern to discuss his book, After Disruption: A Future for Cultural Memory. Together, they explore how libraries, archives, and museums can reclaim their role in shaping a just and sustainable digital present. Owens argues that cultural memory institutions—long “disrupted” by tech-sector ideologies—must chart their own course forward by centering values of maintenance, care, and repair, ensuring that the future of memory is built on belonging and connection rather than burnout and loss.

Grab your copy of After Disruption: https://press.umich.edu/Books/A/After-Disruption3

This conversation was recorded on 9/25/2025. Watch the full video recording at: https://archive.org/details/after-disruption

Check out all of the Future Knowledge episodes at https://archive.org/details/future-knowledge