M5-MA S: Current Debates von Globalisation, Media & Culture "Thermal Geographies: Living with Heat on a Warming Planet"
Instructors: Dr. Malve JacobsenShortname: M5-MA S
Course No.: 09.050.461
Course Type: Seminar
Contents
Thermal Geographies: Living with Heat on a Warming PlanetHeat is increasingly recognized as one of the defining conditions of contemporary (planetary) life. Yet heat is more than a meteorological variable or a hazard of the climate crisis. Heat is a relational force that shapes bodies, infrastructures, ecologies, technologies, and ways of knowing the world.
This seminar explores the multiple thermal geographies through which heat is experienced, governed, contested, and lived. Drawing on cultural geography, political ecology, science and technology studies, environmental humanities, and emerging work on thermal geographies of geographies of heat, the course examines how heat co-produces socio-ecological worlds. The course further investigates how thermal conditions shape urban environments, labor, health, and everyday practices, while also considering how heat is sensed, represented, and known through different epistemologies and situated forms of knowledge. Particular attention is paid to questions of adaptation and justice. Moreover, the seminar explores how plants, animals, water, microorganisms, landscapes, and infrastructures participate in the production and regulation of thermal environments. Through current and theoretical debates and empirical case studies from different geographical contexts, students will engage with heat as a material, political, cultural, and ecological subject of study.
Students will have to read academic papers each week, and participate actively in the seminar sessions. One Thursday, we will visit the exhibition TOO HOT! SCORCHING CITIES, NEW IDEAS at Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt. More information will follow.
Dates
| Date (Day of the week) | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 10/29/2026 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 11/05/2026 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 11/12/2026 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 11/19/2026 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 11/26/2026 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 12/03/2026 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 12/10/2026 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 12/17/2026 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 01/07/2027 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 01/14/2027 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 01/21/2027 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 01/28/2027 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 02/04/2027 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 02/11/2027 (Thursday) | 12:15 - 13:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |