International Commission on the History of Meteorology

University of Minnesota, April 5-7 2013

Critical climate change scholarship has demonstrated how the prospect of non-linear, catastrophic change in the conditions of human life demands new modes of critical engagement, and new forms of alignment between social and cultural theory, the earth and life sciences, and political practice (Cohen and Colebrook 2012; Szerszynski and Urry 2010)[1]. This work includes analyses of the political economy of the carbon trade (Bumpus and Liverman 2008; Thorne and Randalls 2007)[2]; the political implications of uncertainty and catastrophe in imagining climate futures (Clark 2010; Gabrys and Yusoff 2011; Hulme and Dessai 2008; Swyngedouw 2010; Zizek 2010); and the intersection of economic and ecological crisis in contemporary forms of power (Cooper 2010; Dibley and Neilson 2010; Massumi 2009). This workshop aims to contribute to these efforts and provoke new inquiries by posing the question: what is critical about critical climate change scholarship? Employing the dual implications of this phrase, we ask both how climate change demands a rethinking of the nature of critique, and how critical scholarship is more necessary than ever for efforts toward just and sustainable ecological futures.

The New Scholars group of NiCHE (Network in Canadian History and Environment) would like to invite submissions for the 3rd annual Place and Placelessness Online Workshop, taking place October 18-19, 2012.

Visit the workshop website for full details at http://virtualeh.wordpress.com/

This online symposium is intended for graduate students and recently graduated scholars from all disciplines that seek to better understand the complex relationships between nature and culture, with particular attention paid to the theme of climate. The workshop attempts to replicate the collegiate atmosphere of a shared-space meeting by using a variety of internet tools, including WordPress, Skype, Google Maps, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter to share ideas and participate in engaged discussion. This model should appeal especially to those who are eager for academic gatherings without the cost or carbon footprint of in-person meetings. The workshop encourages participation from students across the humanities, social sciences and physical sciences in an attempt to facilitate trans-disciplinary and transnational dialogue for global issues such as anthropogenic climate change.

Scientific Communication and its History – III
Climate and Weather: Science as Public Culture
Conference at the Maison Française d’Oxford
7 – 9 January 2013

Call for Papers

This is the third conference in a series devoted to historical and contemporary perspectives on the communication of science and technology.

Climate and weather provide a particularly rich and challenging case study to complete the conference series. The climate sciences are characterized by complexity: in their professional networks; their conceptual models; and the logistics of their large-scale data and computing needs. Yet few modern scientific disciplines attract the same level of public engagement, in both everyday life and passionate debate on the future of the planet. Moreover, their status at the intersection of policy, scientific controversy and the public sphere is not a recent development: the same issues and fault lines ran through meteorology from the 18th-century onwards.