apocalypse

Issue 6.1 - Special Issue "Contemporary Speculative Fiction" Previous Issues

Jordan Krall’s Speculative Fiction

Speculative fiction is a paradox. Synonymous with science fiction and “genre literature,” it is also one of the most ancient modes of storytelling in literary history. One could easily identify Plato’s Atlantis…

Issue 5.4 - Special Issue "Nuclear Narratives" Previous Issues

The Futures of Nuclear Criticism

Daniel Cordle July 29, 2016 2 Comments Anthropocene apocalypse Bobbi Ann Mason civil defence planning Cold War end of the world John Hersey Maggie Gee Michael Madsen nuclear criticism nuclear narratives nuclear studies nuclear subjectivities nuclear sublime nuclear temporalities nuclear uncanny nuclearity politics of vulnerability toxic discourse Ursula Le Guin War Day

The unthinkable happened at 4.20pm on 28 October, 1988. Though lasting only thirty-six minutes – betrayal by European NATO allies prevented escalation into the global holocaust many had feared – nuclear attack transformed the United States. As Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka record in an extraordinary travel narrative about a perilous journey around the country five years…

Issue 5.4 - Special Issue "Nuclear Narratives" Previous Issues

Haunting Clouds

Grace Halden July 29, 2016 1 Comment apocalypse Barefoot Gen Chernobyl Cuban Missiles Crisis Daiichi Fukushima Hiroshima John Ruskin mushroom clouds Nagasaki nuclear bomb nuclear clouds nuclear postcards radioactivity technological sublime test sites

Clouds form part of a shared and familiar everyday aesthetic. Cloud narrative through which patterns are seen incorporate more than simple pareidolia when we consider the nuclear cloud. Ordinarily, pareidolia refers to witnessing illusion; thus, we might see images and symbols in clouds. However, the nuclear cloud engages a more nuanced narrative of cultural trauma than the term pareidolia encompasses.