This seminar explores the intersection of nuclear criticism and the environmental humanities, with a specific focus on nuclear colonialism as a mode of environmental occupation. We will read some classic and contemporary theorizations of nuclear colonialism and consider how its environmental impacts shape the processes of both colonization and decolonization in nuclearized spaces. We will also discuss how art, literature, and other cultural works represent the ongoing violence of nuclear colonialism, as well as how they envision the possibilities of decolonization. Finally, we will reflect on the different perspectives that participants’ disciplinary backgrounds bring to the topic.

Key questions for discussion:

Having watched Anointed, what is one moment or line or image that has stayed with you?

What is specifically environmental about nuclear colonialism? What are the implications of this for decolonial thought and praxis?

What role can art and literature play in reckoning with nuclear colonialism and moving towards the decolonization of nuclearized spaces?

Approaching this research area and these readings from your own disciplinary perspective, what research questions or avenues of thought does this open up for you?

Required readings/viewings:

Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, Anointed (2018). https://www.kathyjetnilkijiner.com/dome-poem-iii-anointed-final-poem-and-video/ 

Churchill, W., & LaDuke, W. (1986). Native America: The Political Economy of Radioactive Colonialism. Insurgent Sociologist, 13(3), 51-78. https://doi.org/10.1177/089692058601300306

Bahng, A. (2020). The Pacific Proving Grounds and the Proliferation of Settler Environmentalism. Journal of Transnational American Studies, 11(2), 45-73. http://dx.doi.org/10.5070/T8112049580  Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5ps5x93q 

Monnet, L. (2022). “Introduction: Toxic Immanence: Toward Decolonizing Pedagogies of the Nuclear” in Toxic Immanence: Decolonizing Nuclear Legacies and Futures (McGill UP, 2022), 1-36. Focus on pp. 1-13.

REGISTRATION

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