Being Algae

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).

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