Being Algae

Transformations in Water, Plants
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-90-04-68330-3
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 8, 332 Seiten, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 649 g

Reihe: Critical Plant Studies

Water plants of all sizes, from the 60-meter long Pacific Ocean giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) to the micro ur-plant blue-green algae, deserve attention from critical plant studies. This is the first book in environmental humanities to approach algae, swimming across the sciences, humanities, and arts, to embody the mixed nature and collaborative identity of algae.

Ranging from Medieval Islamic texts describing algae and their use, Japanese and Nordic cultural practices based in seaweed and algae, and confronting the instrumentalization of seaweed to mitigate cow methane release and the hype of algal photobioreactors, amongst many other standpoints, this volume comprehensively addresses the ancestors of terrestrial plants through appreciating their unique aquatic medium.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Hendlin, Yogi Hale

Weggelaar, Johanna

Derossi, Natalia

Mugnai, Sergio

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Metaphysik, Ontologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Angewandte Ethik & Soziale Verantwortung Umweltethik, Umweltphilosophie
• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Denkansätze und Ideologie der Umweltschützer
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Phänomenologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ästhetik
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Botanik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Erkenntnistheorie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures

Notes on Contributors

Introduction

Algal mor(t)ality

1 There’s Something in the Water: Algae, Eliminativism, and Our Moral Obligation to Biological Beings

M. Polo Camacho and Andrew Lopez

2 Seeking an Algal Perspective: Exploring “Harmful” Algae through an Interview with Nodularia spumigena

Jesse D. Peterson

3 Contemplating Life, Death and Time Together with Diatoms

Nina Lykke

4 Communicating Algae Polycultures: Photobioreactors, the Phycosphere and Its Living Waters

Yogi Hendlin, Johanna Weggelaar, Natalia Derossi and Sergio Mugnai

5 Algae in the Human World: Beauty and Taste Come First

Ole G. Mouritsen and J. Lucas Pérez-Lloréns

6 An Investigation of Algae’s Applications, Inspired by Indigenous and Vernacular Craft Traditions

Kathryn Larsen

7 Uses of and Considerations on Algae in Medieval Islamic Geography

Mustafa Yavuz

8 Microalgae and Human Affairs: Massive Increase in Knowledge Drives Changes in Perceptions of Good and Bad Blooms

Gustaaf Hallegraeff

9 Becoming Marimo: The Curious Case of a Charismatic Algae and Imagined Indigeneity

Jon L. Pitt

10 “A Seaweed Goes to War”: Agar as a Thermal Medium in C.K. Tseng’s research at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (1943–1946)

Melody Jue

11 Augmented Polycultures: Scaling up Algal Ecosystems and Design of a Biofouling Aesthetic

Brenda Parker and Marcos Cruz

12 Phytofictions and Phytofication

Julia Lohmann

13 Seaweed as the Denizens of the New Commons in the Anthropocene

Soo Jung Ryu and Cintia Organo Quintana

Being Algae ~ Coda

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Yogi Hale Hendlin, Ph.D., is an environmental philosopher and public health scientist. Hendlin is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biosemiotics, writes on interspecies communication, critical plant studies, and the role of industrialism affecting our environment which in turn determines our health. As a professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, as well as researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, Hendlin’s interdisciplinary work regularly appears in the academic and popular press. Also co-edited by Hendlin, Food and Medicine: A Biosemiotic Perspective appeared in 2021.

Johanna Weggelaar is an independent project leader and researcher working at the crossroads of science and the creative sector. With a background in general engineering from the École Centrale de Lyon in France and in Cultural History from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, she conducts multidisciplinary projects where expertises from various backgrounds are necessary to tackle complex problems. She has been working for the last 5 years on the role algae have in the environment and in our societies, researching how human-algae relations may be interpreted.

Natalia Derossi graduated Summa Cum Laude from Erasmus University College, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She has tutored Ecology at Erasmus University College. She then pursued a Research Master Degree from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France, with a thesis dealing with the promises of infinite growth unleashed by recent biotechnology advancements, written starting from an ethnographic fieldwork conducted at the largest European biotechnology facility in Wageningen, the Netherlands. Currently, she lives in Paris working as an interpreter and conducting field research for a Franco-Swiss Environmental Justice coordination framework fighting against the devastating effects of fossil finance.

Sergio Mugnai, Ph.D., is a plant biologist and currently Senior Lecturer at the Erasmus University College (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), with a major interest in environmental sustainability. He was previously a researcher at the University of Florence (Italy) where he conducted research on plant response to abiotic stressors as well as plant internal communication. He also worked at the European Space Agency (ESA) as Biology Project Scientist for almost four years. In this position he followed several biology experiments on board the International Space Station (ISS).