In this conversation, we will discuss early findings from Maximilian’s research project on the historical and cultural geographies of weather-health (Wellcome Trust, 2024-2029). Focus will be on basic ontological and epistemological questions: What is ‘weather’? What about ‘weather’ influences human bodies and minds? How are they, in turn, imagined in relation to ‘the weather’? How do we know about these influences? How has this knowledge changed over time? At which spatial and temporal scales does this knowledge operate? Does this knowledge help us face the climate crisis? Maximilian will sketch out answers to some of these questions through a partial retelling of the history of medical meteorology/climatology and later human biometeorology across three speculative registers: the colonial, the occult, and the marginal. In brief, these registers foreground the use and abuse of weather-health knowledge to reify racial difference, the difficulty of measuring and establishing weather-health as scientific field, and the lack of uptake of recent advancements in biometeorological knowledge. All three contribute to an understanding of what Max is calling “meteorosensitivity” or our exposure to the meteorological.

About the speaker

Dr Maximilian Gregor Hepach is Assistant Professor (Research) in Geography at Durham University. His current project titled ‘Under pressure: a historical and cultural geography of meteorosensitivity’ examines the different ways weather’s impact on health and well-being have been understood historically, and how those differences play into present day weather-health warning practices under pressure from climate change. Previously, he was project coordinator and postdoctoral research with Weather Reports (2022-2024, Potsdam, AHRC & DFG). His recent publications include an editorial to a Special Issue for Media+Environment on “Wind Humanities: An Elemental Media Approach.”