The Silence Of Fallout

This collection asks how we are to address the nuclear question in a post-Cold War world. Rather than a temporary fad, Nuclear Criticism perpetually re-surfaces in theoretical circles. Given the recent events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, the ripple of anti-nuclear sentiment the event created, as well as the discursive maneuvers that took place in the aftermath, we might pause to reflect upon Nuclear Criticism and its place in contemporary scholarship (and society at-large). Scholars who were active in earlier expressions of Nuclear Criticism converse with emergent scholars likewise striving to negotiate the field moving forward. This volume revolves around these dialogic moments of agreement and departure; refusing the silence of complacency, the authors renew this conversation while taking it in exciting new directions. As political paradigms shift and awareness of nuclear issues manifests in alternative forms, the collected essays establish groundwork for future generations caught in a perpetual struggle with legacies of the nuclear.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020 New York Times bestselling author Lesley M.M. Blume reveals how one courageous American reporter uncovered one of the deadliest cover-ups of the 20th century—the true effects of the atom bomb—potentially saving millions of lives. Just days after the United States decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. But even before the surrender, the US government and military had begun a secret propaganda and information suppression campaign to hide the devastating nature of these experimental weapons. The cover-up intensified as Occupation forces closed the atomic cities to Allied reporters, preventing leaks about the horrific long-term effects of radiation which would kill thousands during the months after the blast. For nearly a year the cover-up worked—until New Yorker journalist John Hersey got into Hiroshima and managed to report the truth to the world. As Hersey and his editors prepared his article for publication, they kept the story secret—even from most of their New Yorker colleagues. When the magazine published “Hiroshima” in August 1946, it became an instant global sensation, and inspired pervasive horror about the hellish new threat that America had unleashed. Since 1945, no nuclear weapons have ever been deployed in war partly because Hersey alerted the world to their true, devastating impact. This knowledge has remained among the greatest deterrents to using them since the end of World War II. Released on the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, Fallout is an engrossing detective story, as well as an important piece of hidden history that shows how one heroic scoop saved—and can still save—the world.

Silent Fallout explores what happens when a small town and country fights back when there is industrial contamination.

The Routledge Companion to Ecopoetics offers comprehensive coverage of the vital and growing movement of ecopoetics. This volume begins with a general introduction to the field, followed by six sections: Perspectives: broad overviews engaging fields such as biosemiosis, kinship praxis, and philosophical approaches; Experiments: formal innovations developed by poets in response to planetary crises; Earth and Water: explorations of poetic entanglement with planetary chemical and biological systems; Waste/Toxicity/Precarity: poetics addressing the effects of pollution and climate change; Environmental Justice and Activism: examinations of poetry as an engine of political and cultural change; Region and Place: an international array of traditional and contemporary geographically focused responses to ecosystems and environmental conditions; and Subjectivities/Affects/Sexualities: investigations of gender, ethnicity, and race as they intersect with ecological concerns. Each section includes an overview and summary addressing the specific essays in the section. These previously unpublished essays represent a wide variety of nationalities, backgrounds, perspectives, and critical approaches exploring the interdisciplinary field of ecopoetics. Contributions from leading scholars working across the globe make The Routledge Companion to Ecopoetics a landmark textbook and reference for a variety of researchers and students.

More than a decade after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, what we are witnessing is not a Second Nuclear Age – there is no post-atomic – but an uncanny, quiet return of the nuclear threat that so vividly animated the Cold War era. The renewed threat of nuclear proliferation, public complacency regarding weapons stockpiles, and the lack of a single functioning long-term repository after seventy years and thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste reveals the industry’s capacity for self-reinvention abetted by an ever-present capacity to forget. More than “fabulously textual,” as Jacques Derrida described it, the protean, unbound, and unending materiality of the nuclear is here to stay: resistance is crucial. Toxic Immanence introduces contemporary interdisciplinary perspectives that resist and decolonize the nuclear. Contributors highlight the prevalence and irrationality of slow violence and colonial governance as elements of the contemporary nuclear age. They propose a reappraisal of Cold War-era anti-nuclear art as well as pop culture representations of nuclear disaster, while decolonizing pedagogies advance the role of education in communicating and understanding the lethality of nuclear complexes. Collectively, the essays develop a robust critical discourse across fields of nuclear knowledge and integrate the work of the nuclear humanities with environmental justice and Indigenous rights activism. This reach across ways of knowing extends artistically: the poetry and photography included in this volume offer visions of past and present nuclear legacies. Conceived as a critical reflection on the potential of nuclear humanities, Toxic Immanence offers intellectual strategies for resisting and abolishing the global nuclear regime.

FEATURING: IAN BOGOST - LEIGH ALEXANDER - ZOE QUINN - ANITA SARKEESIAN & KATHERINE CROSS - IAN SHANAHAN - ANNA ANTHROPY - EVAN NARCISSE - HUSSEIN IBRAHIM - CARA ELLISON & BRENDAN KEOGH - DAN GOLDING - DAVID JOHNSTON - WILLIAM KNOBLAUCH - MERRITT KOPAS - OLA WIKANDER The State of Play is a call to consider the high stakes of video game culture and how our digital and real lives collide. Here, video games are not hobbies or pure recreation; they are vehicles for art, sex, and race and class politics. The sixteen contributors are entrenched—they are the video game creators themselves, media critics, and Internet celebrities. They share one thing: they are all players at heart, handpicked to form a superstar roster by Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson, the authors of the bestselling Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game that Changed Everything. The State of Play is essential reading for anyone interested in what may well be the defining form of cultural expression of our time. "If you want to explain to anyone why videogames are worth caring about, this is a single volume primer on where we are, how we got here and where we're going next. In every way, this is the state of play." —Kieron Gillen, author of The Wicked + the Divine, co-founder of Rock Paper Shotgun

Cold War Space and Culture in the 1960s and 1980s: The Bunkered Decades studies the two periods in which Americans were actively encouraged to excavate their own backyards while governments the world over exhausted their budgets on fortified super-shelters and megaton bombs. The dreams and nightmares inspired by the spectre of nuclear destruction were expressed in images and forms from comics, movies, and pulp paperbacks to policy documents, protest movements, and survivalist tracts. Illustrated with photographs, artwork, and movie and television stills of real and imagined fallout shelters and other bunker fantasies, award-winning author David L. Pike's continues his decades-long exploration of the meanings of modern undergrounds. Ranging widely across disciplines, this volume finds unexpected connections between cultural icons and forgotten texts, plumbs the bunker's stratifications of class, region, race, and gender, and traces the often unrecognized through-lines leading from the 1960s and the less-studied 1980s into the present. Although the Cold War ended over 30 years ago, its legacy looms large in anxieties around security, borders, and all manners of imminent apocalypse. Treating the bunker in its concrete presence and in its flightiest fantasies while attending equally to its uniquely American desires and pathologies and to its global impact, Cold War Space and Culture in the 1960s and 1980s proposes a new way to understand the outsized afterlife of the bunkered decades.

In a world veiled by intrigue and cloaked in secrecy, where the boundaries between truth and deception blur, a trio of unlikely heroes emerges. Dominic Hargrove, a seasoned spy with a haunted past; Emilia Kessler, a brilliant scientist driven by curiosity and a hunger for justice; and Jean-Luc Perrault, a steadfast figure of integrity in the complex web of international law enforcement. Together, they navigate a landscape riddled with shadows and secrets, embarking on a mission that will test their resolve, their skills, and their very principles. This is a tale of science fiction and espionage, a thrilling journey through the realms of intrigue and danger. Within the pages of this story, the world teeters on the brink of chaos as a nefarious conspiracy unravels, threatening to unleash untold devastation. At its heart lies a seismic weapon, a technology capable of triggering catastrophic events with the flick of a switch. As the web of conspiracy tightens, Hargrove, Emilia, and Perrault find themselves entangled in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, pursued by a relentless enemy willing to stop at nothing to protect their dark ambitions. In their quest for truth and justice, they must navigate treacherous alliances, confront their own inner demons, and make unimaginable sacrifices. From the shadowy corridors of power to the frozen depths of Siberia, their journey takes them across continents, their every step shrouded in danger and uncertainty. Each chapter unravels a new layer of mystery, propelling them closer to the heart of the conspiracy while revealing the intricate connections between science, espionage, and the human spirit. In this science fiction spy thriller, the boundaries of possibility are pushed to their limits. The story dances on the precipice of reality, exploring the darker side of human nature and the resilience of the human spirit. Prepare to be immersed in a world where the line between hero and villain blurs, where secrets lie at every turn, and where the fate of nations hangs in the balance. Join Hargrove, Emilia, and Perrault as they unravel the enigma, race against time, and confront the shadows that threaten to consume their world. Their journey will challenge them in ways they never imagined, forcing them to question their loyalties, test their limits, and ultimately define their own destinies. Welcome to a world of secrets, spies, and the eternal struggle between truth and deception. Welcome to a science fiction spy thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the final page is turned.