Nuclear Gaia - (Bcmcr New Directions in Media and Cultural Research) by Agnieszka Jelewska & Michal Krawczak (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The book analyses new media archives on nuclear violence toward humans and the environment in the context of the ongoing project to transform Earth into Nuclear Gaia as a consequence of a confluence of political, military, economic, and scientific decisions made back in the 1940s, related to the development of nuclearity. 24 b&w illus.

Review Quotes

Nuclear Gaia: Media Archives of Planetary Harm is a rich intervention in the field of nuclear studies. It offers not only new case studies and materials, but also new conceptual insights and tools by which to think about them. By viewing nuclear power through a range of ecological and scientific lenses, the authors have arrived at a highly original, path-breaking interpretation of their subject. This landmark study promises to pave the way from nuclear to postnuclear studies, where AI, quantum mechanics and nuclear technologies will merge in ways we are only just beginning to imagine.

'Let's stop debating how to prevent apocalypse and accept that the end of the world has already happened. Based on superb scholarship and crossing epistemic terrains which are normally bordered and secured, Nuclear Gaia tells the story of how that end came about. Not since Virilio has anyone written with such clarity and scope on the darkness of human destinies.'

About the Author

Agnieszka Jelewska is professor in the Anthropology and Cultural Studies Department and cofounder of the Humanities/Art/Technology Research Center at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. Michal Krawczak is associate professor in the Anthropology and Cultural Studies Department and cofounder of the Humanities/Art/Technology Research Center at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland.