Review: Green hour: “The ghosts of extinction” (Dolly jørgensen)

In her book “Ghosts behind Glass” (2025), environmental historian Dolly Jørgensen defines extinction as an act of violence between humans and animals. Focusing on museum displays of what’s “left over” from animals that no longer exist, she highlights various ways of staging the relationship between humans and animals and analyzes the different modes of telling the story of a very particular, and brutal, relationship. By emphasizing the language we use in the context of extinction, she reminds us how humans are interfering in the reciprocal relations between ourselves and non-human species. How, then, is extinction presented, and what are the techniques that are being used? As Jørgensen points out, extinct animals ‘live on’ behind the glass of museum cabinets.