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SUMMARY:There is no such thing as weather: a historical and cultural geogr
 aphy of weather (and health) - Maximilian Gregor Hepach\, Durham Universit
 y 
DTSTART:20260430T110000Z
DTEND:20260430T120000Z
UID:TALK246604@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Richard Waters
DESCRIPTION:Few things are\, at first glance\, as present as the weather. 
 Our everyday lives are inescapably shaped by the daily weather and its cha
 nges. Extreme weather events—heatwaves\, floods\, storms\, etc.—bring 
 everyday life to a halt and feature prominently in news reports as part of
  the narrative arc of the climate crisis. Inspired in part by work in phen
 omenological anthropology (Ingold\; Vannini)\, cultural geographers have r
 ecently turned to weather as a medium of everyday lived experience\; as a 
 paradigmatic example of the more-than-representational\; as a site where t
 he elements\, affect\, and meaning are entangled with one another (Edensor
  et al.\; Endfield\; Engelmann\; Hulme\; McCormack). Historical geographer
 s have further interrogated the history of meteorology and other weather k
 nowledges as tied up with the projects of colonialism and imperialism (Ada
 mson\; Grossman\; Mahony\; Naylor).\n\nIn this talk\, I interrogate the na
 ture of weather's presence in these accounts. My starting point is weather
 's relation to health—how changes in weather influence both our physical
  and mental states. As the historical examples I discuss will show\, the n
 ature of this influence was and remains contested. Attuning to its histori
 cal and cultural specificity reveals that the nature of weather\, body\, a
 nd mind changes over time and in relation to each other. In other words\, 
 there is no stable\, ahistorical reference point or medium called “weath
 er” that influences “the body” or “the mind.” Instead\, I argue\
 , weather and the body/mind become differentially legible in relation to e
 ach other through distinct meteorological assemblages that sustain them as
  well as wider social and moral orders.\n\nDrawing briefly on the theoreti
 cal work of Michel Serres and Jacques Derrida\, I explore these assemblage
 s through the different scales (and volumes) at which they operate\, namel
 y the celestial\, synoptic\, and spectral/subcutaneous. Each assemblage\, 
 featuring examples ranging from early medical astrology to twentieth-centu
 ry German medical meteorology\, testifies to the impossibility of renderin
 g weather fully present.
LOCATION:Small Lecture Room\, Department of Geography
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