Wait Five Minutes Weatherlore in the Twenty-First Century

About this book

The weather governs our lives. It fills gaps in conversations, determines our dress, and influences our architecture. No matter how much our lives may have moved indoors, no matter how much we may rely on technology, we still monitor the weather. Focusing on the USA, Wait Five Minutes: Weatherlore in the Twenty-First Century draws from folkloric, literary, and scientific theory to offer up new ways of thinking about this most ancient of phenomena.

Weatherlore is a concept that describes the folk beliefs and traditions about the weather that are passed down casually among groups of people. Weatherlore can be predictive, such as the belief that more black than brown fuzz on a woolly bear caterpillar signals a harsh winter. It can be the familiar commentary that eases daily social interactions, such as asking, "Is it hot (or cold) enough for you?" Other times, it is simply ubiquitous: "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes, and it will change." From detailing personal experiences at picnics and suburban lawns to critically analyzing storm stories, novels, and flood legends, contributors offer engaging multidisciplinary perspectives on weatherlore.

As we move further into the twenty-first century, an increasing awareness of climate change and its impacts on daily life calls for a folkloristic reckoning with the weather and a rising need to examine vernacular understandings of weather and climate. Weatherlore helps us understand and shape global political conversations about climate change and biopolitics at the same time that it influences individual, group, and regional lives and identities. We use weather, and thus its folklore, to make meaning of ourselves, our groups, and, quite literally, our world.

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Biography

Shelley Ingram is an assistant professor of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her essays have appeared in such edited collections and journals as African American Review and Food & Foodways. She is currently editor of the Louisiana Folklore Miscellany and coauthor with Willow G. Mullins and Todd Richardson of Implied Nowhere: Absence in Folklore Studies, published by University Press of Mississippi.

Willow G. Mullins is a lecturer in Celtic and Scottish studies at the University of Edinburgh. She is the author of Felt and coauthor with Shelley Ingram and Todd Richardson of Implied Nowhere: Absence in Folklore Studies, published by University Press of Mississippi.


Contributors:
- Emma Frances Bloomfield
- Sheila Bock
- Kristen Bradley
- Hannah Chapple
- James Deutsch
- Mairt Hanley
- Christine Hoffmann
- Kate Parker Horigan
- Shelley Ingram
- John Laudun
- Jordan Lovejoy
- Lena Marander-Eklund
- Jennifer Morrison
- Willow G. Mullins
- Anne Pryor
- Todd Richardson
- Claire Schmidt