Launching the Atmospheric Humanities
Launching the Atmospheric Humanities
The Fifth International Workshop on Science, Philosophy and Literature
Hermoupolis, Syros Island, Greece
14-16 July 2020
Organized by the International Commission of Science and Literature and the International Commission on History of Meteorology
The Atmospheric Humanities is a new and fast-emerging multidisciplinary field of scholarship that explores socio-cultural dimensions of atmospheric knowledge and practice. Atmospheric Humanities is envisioned as a trans-disciplinary exercise designed to capture the atmosphere's agency as it becomes manifest as a medium, life-giver, carrier, nutrient source, threat and a concern in modern life, politics, and art. In foregrounding these manifestations, the atmosphere emerges as a site of inquiry into the cultural appropriations of air’s modalities and diverse forms of climatological citizenship.
This foundational workshop aims to foster discussions on how atmospheric themes, memes, and objects emerge, spread and travel across artistic and academic communities. We especially welcome contributions from scholars whose work spans disciplines, including, but not limited to, literary and media studies, history of science, environmental history, aesthetics, visual arts, architecture, phenomenology, and social sciences.
Key themes:
- The changing representation(s) of the atmosphere in art and popular media, both contemporary and historical.
- Interfaces and interactions between scientific understanding(s) of the atmosphere and other ways of knowing or experiencing the atmosphere (e.g. political, indigenous, religious, philosophical, aesthetic).
- Explorations of space and scale in relation to human understanding of the atmosphere and related concepts such as weather and climate.
- The material culture of the atmosphere, including technologies used to measure, assess, represent and manipulate the atmosphere.
The organizers will provide limited travel support to early career scholars.
Organizing committee: Vladimir Jankovic (University of Manchester), Madalina Diaconu (University of Vienna), Alexander Hall (University of Birmingham), James R. Fleming (Colby College)
Please send your abstract before 31 January 2020 to Dr Vladimir Jankovic at: vladimir.jankovic@manchester.ac.uk
For information on support, contact Dr Alexander Hall a.f.hall@bham.ac.uk
Dr. Vladimir Jankovic, University of Manchester, UK