Atomic Horror

Fears of Nuclear Technology in Gothic Literature, Film and Media
Erscheinungsjahr 2027
ISBN: 978-3-032-38174-3
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan

Buch, Englisch, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm

Reihe: Palgrave Gothic

This edited collection considers the myriad representations of the potential dangers caused by nuclear power within the arts. While the fear of nuclear disaster has been addressed in some scholarly works on the Cold War, apocalyptic and ecocritical fictions, the specific threat of nuclear power within the Gothic and horror deserves further consideration. Indeed, as a concept highly concerned with cultural anxieties, the Gothic has proved fertile ground to express fears of nuclear power. Chapters in this collection engage with the full spectrum of terror and horror, investigating humanity and morality as well as bodily mutation and breakdown, using case studies drawn from literature, film, television, video games, and audio media. Taking a global approach, these studies demonstrate that atomic horror texts emerge from a number of national and historical contexts, tracing specific nuclear fears from the 20th century (such as the Second World War, Cold War and Chornobyl disaster) and connecting the lasting impact of such conflicts and disasters to the threat of nuclear war in the present day, making this collection a timely exploration of a still-pressing anxiety.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Whittall, Abigail

Hubner, Laura

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Strömungen & Epochen
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Populärkultur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

.- Introduction Abigail Whittall and Laura Hubner.- Part I Visions and Echoes of Destruction.- The Nuclear Poetics of Early-Soviet Sci-Fi Gothic: Lessons in Loving the Bomb in Ilya Ehrenburg’s Catastrophe Novels Asiya Bulatova.- “Over my dead body”: (1984) and the Gothic Everyday David Forrest and Sue Vice.- “I’ll Be Back”: (1984) as Revenant from the Nuclear Apocalypse, Min-Kyoo Kim.- Nuclear Children and (2016): The Gothic Presence in the Theatricalised Testimony of Descendants of Nuclear Test Veterans, Gordon Murray.- Part II Remixing and (Re-)playing the Nuclear Apocalypse.- Contemporary Spanish Animation and Nuclear Traumatic Memory: Alberto Vázquez’s Media Mix as Flatline Fiction.- Antonio Rivera Arnaldos.- Playing Apocalypse: The Gamification of Atomic Horror Anthony Enns and Anne Kustritz.- Adapting Senses: (2014) as a Sensory Adaptive Vehicle of the Post-Apocalypse André Cowen.- Part III The Spectre of Chornobyl.- “Scaring a Different Way”: Drama, Documentary and Horror Hybridity in (2019) Abigail Whittall.- “The Soil is a Substance as Mysterious as Blood”: Haunting the Irradiated Soil of Svetlana Alexievich’s (1997) and the Duffer Brothers’ (2016-2025) Matthew Leggatt.- “It is Like Living Among Ghosts”: The Gothic Dimensions of Corporeality Loss in Anne Blankman’s (2020) Inna Häkkinen.- Spectral Encounters in the Exclusion Zone: The Chornobyl Disaster’s Paranormal Afterlife Matt Boyd Smith.- Part IV Monstrous Mutations.- From Within and Without: Nuclear Mutations in Physical and Social Bodies in (2007) Jay Fraser.- Nuclear Societal Structures in the Franchise Meghan Hewitt.- Uncanny Transfigurations: Distortions of Size and Scale in the Science Fiction Horror of the 1950s James Williamson.- Godzilla or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Kaiju Ted Wilkes.

Über Autor(innen)

Abigail Whittall  is Research Degrees Leader at the University for the Creative Arts. She has taught Film and English Literature at the University of Winchester where she completed her funded PhD studentship on the representation of Nazism in 21st century horror films. She has published on this topic in the edited collection   (2021), in addition to an article on the depiction of Nazis in superhero media in the  . Her recent research focuses on the perception of acting in the horror genre and the specific role of the practical effects makeup performer.

Laura Hubner  is Professor Emeritus at the University of Winchester. Author of   and  , she has published widely on cinema, literature, culture and the arts, including    , and and She was Guest Speaker on the 1000th Episode of BBC Radio 4’s   on   and is currently working on a new monograph on Bergman.