We invite contributions to this sourcebook, which aims to present and analyse a diverse range of primary sources that reveal embodied, scientific and cultural knowledges in histories of weather and weathering. It aims to show how these different forms of knowledge and systems of knowledge-making intersected in shaping historical experiences and understandings of climate and weather. While climate is a global, somewhat abstract, phenomena, it is experienced as weather at the local, material, and very visceral level. Contributions will show how understandings and experiences of weather and climate were dependent on context and perspective, including by revealing differences in preparedness and resilience resulting from injustices and inequalities. We conceptualise “weathering” through affect, sensation and emotion, as well as by considering material objects, spaces, practices and technologies as sites where different knowledge systems converged and meanings made.
The book will present textual, visual and material sources that record or were shaped by different forms of knowledge and experience — from scientific measurement to bodily sensation, from quotidian cultural practices to folklore and Indigenous Traditional Knowledge. These have co-existed, competed, and converged in understanding, using and responding to climatic phenomena. The book is intended to 1) reveal the wide range of possible meanings, experiences and understandings of weather found in historical sources, 2) help embed attention to the context-dependent meanings of weather and weathering within the historian’s toolkit for source analysis and 3) provide examples of and guidance for analysis of a wide range of source types.
We hope to include contributions based on sources that date from the late 18th to the mid-20th century, representing as wide a geography as possible. Echoing the differing scales and temporalities of weather and climate, contributions may reflect local or global, individual or societal, short- or long-term histories. We do not aim to include extended transcriptions of texts but expect to include images of most sources and encourage contributors to consider the materiality and visual nature of written sources. Our intention is to publish the volume open access with a university press.
Types of contribution
We are open to contributions of different lengths, between c. 800 and 5,000 words, depending on the source(s) presented and type of analysis offered. Some may focus on an individual source, others may offer a longer analysis of a rich source, comparison between sources or investigate a group or series of sources as a type. Contributions should include 1) an introduction to the source(s) that describes the origin, materiality, and author of the source, 2) commentary on the method(s) used for analysis and 3) a discussion of what the source or source type reveals in relation to the book’s themes of climate, weather, and weathering.
Potential contributors should submit a proposal of 500-800 words by 4 September 2026. This should provide a short outline of the planned contribution, including preliminary analytic ideas and an estimation of length. The editors are open to suggestions for contributions that differ from those described above. The proposal does not need to be a first draft of the full text, but it should be more substantial and considered than a prospective abstract. Our aim is to engage authors early to help streamline the process of working with multiple authors and assembling a successful volume.
Types of source
We are looking to include a wide range of source types, including but not limited to:
• Manuscripts (correspondence, diaries, official records… )
• Printed texts (books, periodicals, newspapers, reports… )
• Images (paintings, drawings, prints, photographs… )
• Visualised data (maps, charts, diagrams, tables, logbooks… )
• Objects (scientific instruments, tools, clothing, decorative arts…. )
• Folklore and tradition (traditional knowledge, folklore, oral history narratives, ethnological
descriptions, ethnographic questionnaires, folk music, rituals… )
• Sound (fieldwork recordings, music, radio, speech… )
• Moving images (film, cinema, television… )
• Built environment (buildings, shelters, gardens, landscapes, roads… )
Important dates
Deadline for proposals: 4 September 2026
Notification of acceptance: 13 November 2026
Deadline for submitting full texts and images: 12 March 2027
Comments from editors returned: 4 June 2027
Deadline for revised texts: 10 September 2027
The full book manuscript will then be submitted to the publisher for peer review.
Send your submission and any queries via email to the editors:
Rebekah Higgitt (r.higgitt@nms.ac.uk),
Tamara Caulkins (tamaracaulkins@gmail.com)
Lotta Leiwo (lotta.leiwo@helsinki.fi).
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