Literary Meteorology. Knowledge, Practice, and Aesthetics of Weather 1750-2013

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Michael Gamper
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature) ; General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 242236491

The DFG funded project »Literary Meteorology« claims to disclose weather as being a major concern of modern culture. It consists of two parts: A diachronic study about the literary and research history of snow (Büttner) and a series of articles on the meteorology in the time of Adalbert Stifter (Gamper). During the work on the project, several unforeseeable obstacles occurred: The history of meteorological research had to be reconstructed to a significant greater extent from historical source material. Furthermore, the manifold ways literature engages with weather exceeded the expectations by far. Conceptualizing this considerably increased complexity of the topic demanded theoretical and methodological enhancement of the research framework. This is the reason why the project has not yet been completed. Within one further year the project could be brought to an end fulfilling entirely its original claim.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants