A Book of Waves

Author:   Stefan Helmreich
Publisher:   Duke University Press
ISBN:  

9781478019947


Pages:   432
Publication Date:   04 August 2023
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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A Book of Waves


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Overview

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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Stefan Helmreich
Publisher:   Duke University Press
Imprint:   Duke University Press
Weight:   0.844kg
ISBN:  

9781478019947


ISBN 10:   1478019948
Pages:   432
Publication Date:   04 August 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

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

Reviews

"""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 *"


Author Information

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.

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