Environmental Studies

Tidalectics: Imagining an oceanic worldview through art and science edited by Stefanie Hessler

by Michael Adams •

October 2018, no. 405

MIT Press (Footprint), $69.99 hb, 256 pp, 9780262038096

Environmental Studies

Tidalectics: Imagining an oceanic worldview through art and science edited by Stefanie Hessler

by Michael Adams •

October 2018, no. 405

Humans live on the Blue Planet: seventy per cent of ‘Earth’ is covered by oceans. We increasingly hear these descriptions: that oceans are the largest habitat, that eighty per cent of all species live there, that they determine weather and climate. All of which, and much more, is true. But the meaning of this still fails to find purchase with most people. The edited volume Tidalectics – subtitled ‘Imagining an oceanic worldview through art and science’, and compiling a pelagic compendium to unsettle and then reconfigure assumed certainties – engages with this challenge.

Michael Adams

Michael Adams teaches and researches at the University of Wollongong, and before that worked for environment NGOs, the national parks service, and Aboriginal organisations. His focus is on human–nature relationships, especially with Indigenous and local communities, and he likes full-immersion methodologies. He was born in India and spends much time outdoors in Australia, India, the United States, and arctic Scandinavia; in the ocean freediving and spearfishing; and in the bush. He writes in a wide variety of forms, including narrative non-fiction, online essays, and peer-reviewed academic articles. He is the winner of ABR's 2017 Calibre Essay Prize.