Changing Climates 2014

Weathering the Everyday and the Cultures of the Anthropocene

Climate is a keyword in contemporary culture, serving as an interface between natural history and cultural history; cultural studies might be thought of as a kind of “climate science,” studying cultural climates, the atmospheres informing and generated from sexual mores, political opinions, and social tensions. In this collective presentation, the Working Group on Globalization and Culture explores the cultural meanings of climate, from the climate determinisms of empire to the climate control of consumer culture. Originally a term describing spatial divisions of the earth, climate is increasingly used to denote our relationship to our material, social, and affective environments, spheres, spaces, and times in which agency is present yet disembodied. The panel encompasses the ways climate and weather are imported into these quotidian structures of feeling and perception, as well as exploring the intersection of geologic histories and cultural histories.

In the Shadow of Izalco: Climate, Culture, and Salvadoran Daily Life

by Jorge Cuellar on September 12, 2016

The Central American Volcanic Arc is a chain of volcanoes that begins on the Guatemala-Mexico border and extends all the way down to northern Panamá. It contains some of the most dynamic volcanoes in the world including the young Cerro Negro in Nicaragua and the Pacaya in Guatemala. El Salvador contains six important volcanoes including the Santa Ana Volcano and...

River Landscapes and the Iconography of Climate Change

by Sigma Colon on September 17, 2015

Water makes visible the processes and threats of climate change. The rate and quality of rain and snow falling to the earth—the lack of water in drought, its overabundance in flood — the most iconic images include water dripping from melting glaciers, contributing to rising sea levels, and polar bears stranded and struggling with disappearing sea ice. Out of such extremes of weather and its...