ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

“Sense and Suitability: Delimiting ‘Temperate’ in Clime and Place”

• In Event: Histories of Biogeography Part 1

English Abstract

By the mid-18th century weather and climate, its aggregate, had come into being as objectively quantifiable phenomena. This notwithstanding, sensory perception of things like temperature, humidity, and air pressure and flow remained inexorably subjective, hinged on a constellation of variable personal factors: body mass, health, gender, mood, personal experience, and cultural background. This paper draws the 19th and early 20th century history of biogeography into conversation with the idea of normative sensory knowledge regimes to discuss a new project aimed at analyzing the means by which Euro and Euro-American derived sensory norms coalesced to define the bounds of “temperate” climate in the scientific imaginary. Project research centers on how these norms informed the global-scale demarcation of temperate biogeographic regions, and intersected with early biological investigations to promote Euronormative and environmentally deterministic perspectives on what constituted “normal” plant and animal growth, development, proliferation, and diversity.

Author

• Brooke Penaloza-Patzak, University of Vienna