Historical and Popular Art Museum of Aegina, Greece
Small island countries in the Caribbean and the Pacific and Indian Ocean have always been exposed to extreme weather, but the last decades have made it clear that they are also the biggest future victims of climate change. However, islands are also key sites in the history of science. Much weather and climate knowledge derives from island sites. When European and North American countries started launching weather balloons around 1900 to measure the upper atmosphere, next to ships, islands formed key launching sites. Islands were ideal places to measure the interaction of the global atmosphere, the land and the ocean. The Keeling curve was the result of decades of accurate and continuous measurements at Mauna Loa observatory on Hawaii. Moreover, islands have also became important meteorological metaphors: think about ‘heat islands’ in urban cities, where microclimates create islands where before there were none.
For a Special Issue of our journal History of Meteorology edited by Dr. Xiao Liu and Dr Zhenwu Qiu
We’re looking for contributors for an exciting special issue of our journal History of Meteorology titled, “Connecting Oceanic Asia: Production and Application of Meteorological Knowledge”. We are after exciting original papers which focus on any aspect of how modern meteorological knowledge was produced under the influence of regional interactions in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.
The collection is being edited by HoM Editorial Collective member, Dr Xiao (Shawn) Liu (Tsinghua University) and his colleague Dr Zhenwu Qiu. Papers can be up to 10,000 words, including citations, see the full style guide and information for more. All papers must be in English, however, we can provide extra copy-editing support for any authors for whom English is a second language. Abstract should be submitted by 10th December and we would expect the selected contributors to provide their draft paper by 15th March 2024 (however, there is some flexibility on this timeline).
We already have several contributors lined up for the special issue, but are seeking another 2 – 3 authors to come on board as contributors. If you are interested in contributing to this special issue or have any questions please reach out to the editors directly. To propose a contribution please send an abstract (no more than 300 words) and a brief C.V. to the below email addresses.
Online Conference, September 15, 2021, 8:50-16:30 UTC
As part of the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the International Commission for the History of Meteorology we hosted an online conference over two separate time zone sessions on Wednesday 15 September 2021.
2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the International Commission for the History of Meteorology (ICHM) within the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. In celebration, ICHM will be holding an online conference reflecting on our discipline as a whole.
The ICHM was founded in 2001 at the 21st International Congress of History of Science in Mexico City. Since then, it has sponsored large specialty meetings in Polling, Germany in 2004; Beijing, China in 2005; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2008 and 2017; Waterville, Maine, USA and Budapest, Hungary in 2009; Manchester, England in 2013; and Prague, Czech Republic, scheduled for 2021.
In part thanks to the commission, the history of meteorology has expanded its remit considerably, incorporating the work of academics from a wide range of institutional and disciplinary backgrounds. Echoing this development, and as reflected in the pages of ICHM’s journal History of Meteorology, the topics of the history of meteorology have become ever more diverse, including new turns towards colonial and applied meteorology. This anniversary conference provides an occasion to take stock and turn our gaze inward.
We welcome papers exploring past and current trajectories of the history of meteorology, with an emphasis on how our discipline can develop in the future. These could include reflections on our institutional shaping, pedagogical development, research turns, new initiatives, and interactions with the history of science, technology, and medicine as a whole and with the atmospheric humanities, broadly defined. As well as being a critical academic conference, this event will also be a celebration of ICHM. It will bring our community together, in scholarship and friendship, at a time when a physical meeting is difficult, connecting early career scholars with more established researchers in the field and ensuring the history of meteorology’s bright future.
Deadline for abstracts (250 words): July 15, 2021
Format: 15-minute presentation followed by 15-minutes of discussion.
Registration information for non-presenting participants will be circulated at a later date.
We welcome pre-recorded contributions if you are unable to attend live due to different time zones, and we are also willing to work with you to accommodate for your sleep schedule (e.g. putting your paper towards the end of the conference if you are on the US west coast).
Separate to the conference, we are also interested in compiling and perhaps circulating personal stories from ICHM’s history, whether it involved beer gardens in Polling, samba dancing in Rio, or lobster in Maine.
University of Manchester and the Royal Meteorological Society
WORKING ATMOSPHERES: INDUSTRIAL METEOROLOGY IN BRITAIN, 1950 – PRESENT
We are inviting applications for a fully funded ESRC-NWDTC PhD fellowship on the modern history of applied and industrial meteorology and climate sciences in Britain since the 1950s. The award, which is made by the ESRC funded North West Doctoral Training Centre, will be managed in collaboration between the University of Manchester (Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine and Centre for Atmospheric Science) and the Royal Meteorological Society. The studentship, which is funded for four years, will start in September 2018 and will be supervised by Dr Vladimir Jankovic (CHSTM), Professor David Schultz (CAS) and Professor Liz Bentley (RMetS). The eligible candidate will be required to complete the Masters course in the History of Science, Technology and Medicne before proceeding to the 3-year PhD research.
The Studentship: During the last sixty years, the application of meteorological knowledge to industrial activities (‘industrial meteorology’) has become global in reach, diverse in outputs, and the subject of substantial research and development. Sectors such as construction, transport, utilities, agriculture, retail and insurance routinely rely on weather information to protect people, manage operations, optimise schedules and secure assets. The historical research will have a policy implication in focusing on the following key questions:
What social, economic and institutional drivers have shaped the growth of industrial meteorology during the last half a century?
Has the applied meteorological information contributed to the reduction of UK industry’s weather sensitivity?
What factors have facilitated or impeded knowledge flows between providers, intermediaries and users of weather information?
Which practices in industrial ‘weather optimization’ have been proven to reduce risk in ways that can be streamlined into UK’s climate adaptation policies?
How to Apply: Applicants should have a good undergraduate degree in history (economic, environmental or social), history of science, geography, environmental studies, sociology or other appropriate subject. The candidate will have some experience of relevant research methods and writing skills, although additional research training will be part of the MSc and the PhD progression. For details on eligibility criteria, including UK residency, applicants should check the ESRC website.
Applicants should submit a summary curriculum vitae (2 pages), an example of recent academic writing (e.g UG Dissertation or other Project) and a short statement (1 page) outlining your interests and qualification for the studentship, and the names and contact details of two academic referees to: Dr Vladimir Jankovic, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Simon Building 2nd Floor, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL. The deadline is Friday 16 February 2018. Interviews will be held on Tuesday 27 February 2018.
King’s College London have launched a new Masters programme in climate change, MA Climate Change: History, Culture, Society. The programme, aimed particularly at those with a humanities background, starts from the premise that since climate change has permeated all aspects of human life, it is no longer possibly to understand it through scientific and economic analysis. The MA therefore addresses the cultural dimensions of climate change, including questions such as ‘Why does climate change provoke disagreement in society?’, ‘Is the current IPCC framework the best way to address climate change?’, ‘What are the implications of the dominance of models within climate science?’, and ‘What can we learn from the long history of human-climate interactions?’. The programme is coordinated by Professor Mike Hulme, founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and author of Why We Disagree About Climate Change.
Lyman Briggs College (LBC), an undergraduate, residential, liberal arts, science program at Michigan State University, invites applications for a tenure-system assistant professorship in HPS of Computing, Networks, or Big Data, to be jointly appointed between the LBC and one of the following units: James Madison College or the Department of Geography. The candidate must have a background in the history, philosophy, or sociology of science, technology, environment, or medicine, and studies computational or network sciences as a subject illustrating core HPS topics such as: expertise and trust; methods of data collection and analysis; or, participatory GIS. We also welcome candidates who use natural language processing or social network methods for studying collaborative research and scientific production. The successful candidate will have an excellent record of teaching and research accomplishments and be committed to undergraduate education. Requirements include a Ph.D (or be scheduled to have a conferred Ph.D. by August 15, 2015) with expertise in the HPS of science, technology, environment, or medicine. Interests in non-western science and/or diversity and inclusion as related to science would be especially welcomed. Duties include teaching three HPS courses in LBC and one course in the joint appointment department, and maintaining an active research program. Salary and start-up support is competitive and commensurate with experience.
‘Ruling Climate’ aims to explore the relationship between cultural perceptions of the environment and practical attempts at environmental regulation and change between 1500 and 1800. The conference will be held at the University of Warwick on 16 May 2015. Submit proposals by 10 December 2014.
In the early modern period, the environment became a privileged locus of scientific debate and governmental action. Discussions spread across Europe and its colonies as to how to improve the land, and possibly even the climate of a given place; practical efforts were made to enhance the healthiness, productivity, and overall pleasantness of the environment (both natural and built) in the belief that environmental ‘improvement’, as it was then called, would immediately bring about human improvement—a larger, healthier, happier population that would make the country more powerful. Such debates and practices were driven by a persistent belief in the influence that landscape, weather and climate would exert on human beings, both at a physical and a spiritual level. ‘Climate theories’—first advanced by ancient authors such as Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle and Ptolemy—remained a popular explanatory paradigm throughout the early modern period, actively dictating trends in environmental management, social governance, and the administration of both private and public health, as well as shaping colonial attitudes to foreign climates and peoples. Yet the period between 1500 and 1800 was also one of substantial intellectual, scientific, and technological change in which new conceptions of nature, climate, and weather were developed. The human footprint on Earth grew heavier, whilst the first moves towards conservation and sustainable resource management were made. Finally, it was in this period that changing climatic patterns were observed for the first time, partly because of a cooling trend that reached its peak around 1650 (the so-called Little Ice Age).
‘Ruling Climate’ aims to investigate this complex of problems in an interdisciplinary fashion, focusing particularly on three central research questions:
continuities and discrepancies between ancient and early modern climate theories: how were classical theories of climatic influence received and adjusted to new contexts in the early modern period? How did the understanding of climate itself change over time?
climate theories and ‘eco-governmentality’: how did climatological ideas inspire and sustain governmental efforts of various kinds, at both a domestic and a colonial level? e.g. the displacement of populations, environmental planning in connection to public health issues, engineering works, choice of specific sites for new colonies, etc.
governed with climate / governing climate: what is the relationship between theories of climatic influence and the development of strategies to cope with / modify climate and the environment? e.g. through agricultural improvement, increased human settlement, draining of bogs and marshes, deforestation, etc.
We welcome abstracts for 20-minute papers from PhD students and scholars at any stage in their career. Papers from all disciplinary backgrounds are welcome, including environmental history, colonial history, intellectual history, historical geography, history of philosophy, history of medicine, history of science, history of political thought, history of technology. Please send a 200-word abstract (including your name, institutional affiliation and a provisional title) and a one-page CV to rulingclimate@gmail.com. Successful speakers will be notified in January 2015.
The International Commission on History of Meteorology (ICHM) announces four competitive travel bursaries available to graduate students and recent Ph.D.s to support their participation in a workshop hosted by the history of meteorology project at the University of Bergen. The university will provide accommodation at the workshop for the successful applicants. The bursaries are intended to support the costs of airfare, prorated by distance and cost.
Applicants should send their name, contact information, affiliation, year or expected year of Ph.D., dissertation topic or title, and a 200-word abstract of a proposed paper to Georgina Endfield, President of ICHM, Georgina.Endfield@nottingham.ac.uk by 4pm August 1st, 2014. All submissions will be considered by an ICHM panel.