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. Wait Five Minutes: Weatherlore in the Twenty-First Century (UP of Mississippi, 2023) 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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Thersa Matsuura, "The Book of Japanese Folklore: An Encyclopedia of the Spirits, Monsters, and Yokai of Japanese Myth" (Adams Media, 2024)
Sohini Pillai, "Krishna's Mahabharatas: Devotional Retellings of an Epic Narrative" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Cathy Yue Wang, "Snake Sisters and Ghost Daughters: Feminist Adaptations of Traditional Tales in Chinese Fantasy" (Wayne State UP, 2023)
Shakuntala Gawde, "Narrative Analysis of Bhagavata Purana: Selected Episodes from the Tenth Skandha" (Dev Publishers, 2023)
John O’Connor, "The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster" (Sourcebooks, 2024)
Imani D. Owens, "Turn the World Upside Down: Empire and Unruly Forms of Black Folk Culture in the U.S. and Caribbean" (Columbia UP, 2023)
Suzanne Oakdale, "Amazonian Cosmopolitans: Navigating a Shamanic Cosmos, Shifting Indigenous Policies, and Other Modern Projects" (U Nebraska Press, 2022)
Joseph C. Russo, "Hard Luck and Heavy Rain: The Ecology of Stories in Southeast Texas" (Duke UP, 2022)
Jakob Norberg, "The Brothers Grimm and the Making of German Nationalism" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
William G. Pooley, "Body and Tradition in 19th-Century France: Félix Arnaudin and the Moorlands of Gascony, 1870-1914" (Oxford UP, 2019)
Matthieu Felt, "Meanings of Antiquity: Myth Interpretation in Premodern Japan" (Harvard UP, 2023)
Greg Bailey, "The Brahmavaivarta Purana (Ganesa Khanda): Ancient Indian Tradition and Mythology" (Motilal Banarsidass, 2022)
Stuart McHardy, "The Nine Maidens: Priestesses of the Ancient World" (Luath Press, 2023)
Anne Duggan, "The Lost Princess: Women Writers and the History of Classic Fairy Tales" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
Jeffrey S. Debies-Carl, "If You Should Go at Midnight: Legends and Legend Tripping in America" (UP of Mississippi, 2023)
Julian Goodare and Martha McGill, "The Supernatural in Early Modern Scotland" (Manchester UP, 2023)
Michelle Karnes, "Medieval Marvels and Fictions in the Latin West and Islamic World" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
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Sarah Clegg, "Women's Lore: 4,000 Years of Sirens, Serpents and Succubi" (Apollo, 2023)
Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates, "Noah's Arkive" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)
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