In A Book of Waves Stefan Helmreich examines ocean waves as forms of media that carry ecological, geopolitical, and climatological news about our planet. Drawing on ethnographic work with oceanographers and coastal engineers in the Netherlands, the United States, Australia, Japan, and Bangladesh, Helmreich details how scientists at sea and in the lab apprehend waves' materiality through abstractions, seeking to capture in technical language these avatars of nature at once periodic and irreversible, wild and pacific, ephemeral and eternal. For researchers and their publics, the meanings of waves also reflect visions of the ocean as an environmental infrastructure fundamental to trade, travel, warfare, humanitarian rescue, recreation, and managing sea level rise. Interleaving ethnographic chapters with reflections on waves in mythology, surf culture, feminist theory, film, Indigenous Pacific activisms, Black Atlantic history, cosmology, and more, Helmreich demonstrates how waves mark out the wakes and breaks of social histories and futures.
By:
Stefan Helmreich
Imprint: Duke University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Weight: 708g
ISBN: 9781478020417
ISBN 10: 1478020415
Series: The Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures
Pages: 432
Publication Date: 04 August 2023
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Foreword / Daniel R. Reichman and Robert J. Foster ix Preliminary. Forward and Back xiii Preface. Wave Clutter xv Introduction. Significant Waves 1 1. From the Waterwolf to the Sand Motor: Domesticating Waves in the Netherlands 31 Set One First Wave: The Genders of Waves 71 Second Wave: Venice Hologram 79 Third Wave: Wave Navigation, Sea of Islands 83 2. Flipping the Ship: Oriented Knowledge, Media, and Waves in the Field, Scripps Institution of Oceanography 91 Set Two First Wave: Being the Wave 141 Second Wave: Radio Ocean 148 Third Wave: Gravitational Waves, Sounded 154 3. Waves to Order and Disorder: Making and Breaking Scale Models inside and outside the Lab, from Oregon to Japan 159 Set Three First Wave: Massive Movie Waves 192 Second Wave: Hokusai Now 203 Third Wave: Blood, Waves 208 4. World Wide Waves, In Silico: Computer Memory, Ocean Memory, and Version Control in the Global Data Stack 211 Set Four First Wave: Middle Passages 242 Second Wave: Wave Power 250 Third Wave: Wave Theory ~ Social Theory 257 5. Wave Theory, Southern Theory: Disorienting Planetary Oceanic Futures, Indian Ocean 269 Postface. The Ends of Waves 301 Acknowledgments 305 Notes 311 References 339 Index 389
Stefan Helmreich is Professor of Anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of Sounding the Limits of Life: Essays in the Anthropology of Biology and Beyond, Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas, and Silicon Second Nature: Culturing Artificial Life in a Digital World.
Reviews for A Book of Waves
"""An interesting overview of how natural ocean waves permeate society in many, often unrecognized ways from the standpoint of scientists who study them. This book encompasses historical and scientific perspectives on, sociological and anthropological insights into, and engineering and military challenges of humans’ connections with waves. The ethnographic approach blends scientific knowledge with insights from scientists studying waves. . . . Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals."" -- N. W. Hinman * Choice *"
