Author: ichmeteo
Talking Weather
Contemporary debates over the ‘imminent’ climate change threat coupled with the fixation on the apparent acceleration in anthropogenic global warming, have obscured a long, complex and dynamic cultural history of public engagement with climate and the distinctive meaning that climate holds, and has held in the past, for different places and people at a range of scales. Recent scholarship, however, has highlighted that one way to ‘re-culture’ climate discourses is to explore “…local weather and… the relationships between weather and local physical objects and cultural practices” (Hulme, 2008).
The weather is and has been woven into our experiences of modern life in many ways. Particular social norms and cultural contexts, however, shape the way in which weather is conceptualised and experienced, which in turn, together with the knowledge of events in the recallable past, determines whether and how weather becomes inscribed into the social memory and cultural fabric of communities.
The purpose of ‘Talking Weather’ is to bring together individuals with an interest in weather study and cultural histories of the weather, to explore the ways in which people engage with and ascribe meanings to the weather and make sense of it. Specifically the event will provide a forum to discuss different methodologies and approaches that can be used to investigate and capture popular understanding of weather, weather memories and experiences.
Call for Papers: Food and Weather
This multidisciplinary colloquium aims at filling a gap in research by studying the numerous interdependences between weather conditions and human food. It leans on two networks: that of the IEHCA, which works on the history and the cultures of food, and that dedicated to representations of weather (Perception of climate network).
Yet, both research fields of food and meteorology train an “interscience” (Parrochia) which requires a holistic approach of a “total phenomenon” (Mauss). The human beings who are biological and social, try to establish, by collective standards, the interaction between individuals and their environment, between the inside and the outside, in an aim of control, forecast and protection.
Studying relationships between food and meteorology responds, today in highly developed western countries, to a social search for harmony with “Nature”. What about other places? The colloquium will hand over to other cultures. The themes aim to be registered both in the present time and in a historical perspective. The topic will not be the history of food or the history of climate but crossed views. The consequences of the global warming on foodstuffs, as well as past and present scarcities and famines associated with exceptional weather conditions, do not constitute the heart of the subject, because these themes have been and are still the object of numerous colloquiums.
Four axes will be explored: perceptions, rhythms, discourses, signs.
Election results
The election results for the officers of the International Commission on the History of Meteorology:
- The new President of the Commission is Professor Georgina Endfield from the University of Nottingham, UK.
- The new Vice-President of the Commission is Dr Christina Helena da Motta Barboza, Museu de Astronomia e Ciências Afins, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
- The Treasurer of the Commission is Anna Carlsson-Hyslop, The University of Manchester, UK.
- The Secretary/Webmaster of the Commission is Giny Cheong, George Mason University, US.
Their four-year term starts on 1 January 2014. We will introduce the new officers during ICHM business meeting on July 26 at Manchester, during the iCHSTM Congress.
Researcher position
For Nordic speaking historians of science and technology, Universitetet i Bergen has a vacant temporary position as researcher on their project about the history of meteorology in Norway.
For more information, visit the job posting at http://www.jobbnorge.no/job.
(cross post from the Climate History Network)
Princeton’s Avkat Archaeological Project Workshop II
On the last weekend of May 2013 (24th-25th) the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies hosted a two-day meeting of archaeologists, climatologists and historians who share an interest in Anatolia’s late antique and medieval past. The event was organised by John Haldon, a historian from Princeton and the director of the Avkat Archaeological Project, together with Warren Eastwood, a palynologist from Birmingham conducting palaeoenvironmental research around Avkat (a village in NE Turkey which once was an important Byzantine town). The aim of the workshop was to get together researchers from different disciplines who either study the climate history as their main focus, or who consider climate changes as a potentially significant factor in the phenomena and processes they study.
Erich von Drygalski (German)
Elections extended
If you have not voted yet, the elections have been extended to this Friday, June 7. Please view your email for instructions on how to vote.
Elections for officers
We invite members to check their emails for a recent message about voting for new officers. Please contact the current officers if you need the info resent or have questions about the process.
Talking Weather event
We are holding a one-day event on ‘Talking Weather’, as part of our AHRC funded project ‘Weather Walks, Weather Talks’, and would like to invite early career researchers interested in the cultural spaces of climate, to participate in discussions. The purpose of ‘Talking Weather’ is to bring together individuals with an interest in weather study and cultural histories of the weather, to explore the ways in which people engage with and ascribe meanings to the weather and make sense of it. We will also be reflecting on the life and work of climatologist and geographer Gordon Manley whose archives have formed the basis of our research for the broader project.
Speakers include John Kettley (freelance broadcaster and weather consultant), Stephen Burt (author of The Weather Observer’s Handbook), Trevor Harley (University of Dundee and ‘psychometeorologist’), Cerys Jones (University of Aberystwyth) and Lorna Hughes (University of Wales), who will reflect on their experiences in engagement through the broadcast media, in print, and online, alongside others with direct connections to Gordon Manley and his work; John Adamson (Moor House National Nature Reserve), and Frank Oldfield (Emeritus Professor, University of Liverpool).
The event will be held at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), in London, on Tuesday 27th August 2013, between 10:00am and 4:30pm. It is timed just ahead of the RGS-IBG Annual Conference which begins on Wednesday 28th August.