DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Interests

Geographic Field(s):  Latin American and Caribbean History; Medieval and Early Modern European History; Global History

Thematic Field(s):  Environmental History; History of Science, Technology, and Medicine; Religious History

Principal Research Interest(s):  History of Early Modern Meteorology, Cultural History of the Little Ice Age, and Iberian and Mesoamerican Knowledge Making.

Biography

 Juan Fernando León Báez is a cultural historian of Iberia and Mesoamerica whose work bridges environmental history, the history of science, and religious studies. He specializes in how early modern and Indigenous societies responded to climate disruptions during one of the coldest phases of the Little Ice Age (ca. 1475–1715). His research explores how Spanish and Mexican communities interpreted and navigated extreme weather through distinctive cultural practices, theoretical frameworks, and ritual traditions designed to mitigate and adapt to floods, droughts, and freezes.

His book manuscript, Weather Soundings: Vernacular Meteorology in Spain and Mexico during the Little Ice Age, challenges the view that premodern societies were passive victims of past environmental crises. Instead, it reveals how global climate volatility catalyzed the enrichment of local meteorological theories and propitiatory rites, highlighting dynamic traditions of weather knowledge and the material culture that sustained them.

Dr. León Báez has been distinguished for his scholarly contributions and pedagogical excellence, receiving Northwestern University’s Henry Binford Prize for Teaching Excellence (2023), the Hochstein Fellowship for research (2023), along with numerous research and professional grants from the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, the National Science Foundation, the Newberry Library, Science in Human Culture, and The Graduate School.