Sarah Carson

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Academic Appointments

Lecturer

Sarah Carson is a historian of modern South Asia who studies the intersections of weather and climate, predictive sciences, and modern governance. She is currently at work on her first book Weather Reasons, which identifies the "scientific forecast" as a crucial but controversial modern technology that played a pivotal role in debates about scientific authority and authenticity in South Asia. In the book, she tracks the dynamic interplay between multiple traditions of weather prediction and explanation across the region from the 1860s to the 1960s. Sarah has previously published on the politics of the long-term monsoon forecast and climate history in South Asia. Her related research interests include jyōtiṣa śāstra (astral science), Bengali and Rajasthani weather proverbs, global environmental science, and climate politics.

Contact

646-2995
Carson Hall, Room C205
HB 6107

Department(s)

History

Selected Publications

  • "Anticipating the Monsoon: The Necessity and Impossibility of the Seasonal Weather Forecast for South Asia, 1886-1950," The British Journal for the History of Science 54, no. 3 (2021): 305-325, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087421000194

  • "Atmospheric Happening and Weather Reasoning: Climate History in South Asia," History Compass 18, no. 12 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12640