Daniel Cordle

Postmodern postures : literature, science and the two cultures debate

Contents: Introduction: Patterns and postures Part One: Theory: The two cultures: literature versus science Literature-science methodology and the science wars Part Two: Practice: Discourses of knowledge: Chaotic order Discourses of identity: machines, bodies and information Discourses of time: purpose and absurdity Histories: Postmodernism, literature and science Conclusion: Advancing Together? Bibliography Index.

Protect/Protest: British nuclear fiction of the 1980s

Analyses of nuclear fiction have tended to focus on the literature of the United States, particularly that of the 1950s. This article not only switches attention to British literature, but makes the case for the 1980s as a nuclear decade, arguing that the late Cold War context, especially renewed fears of global conflict, produced a distinctive nuclear literature and culture. Taking its cue from E.P. Thompsons rewriting of the British governments civil-defence slogan, ‘Protect and Survive’, as ‘Protest and Survive’, it identifies a series of issues – gender and the family, the environment and socio-economic organization – through which competing nuclear discourses can be read. In particular, it argues, British fiction of this period functions by undercutting the idea that protection is possible. Hence, although few nuclear texts advocate particular policy positions, they are characterized by a politics of vulnerability. Proposing for the first time the existence of a distinctive 1980s nuclear culture, it seeks to suggest the broad parameters within which further research might take place.

Conclusion: Between the Wars

The conclusion summarises how nuclear issues shaped 1980s culture. Frequently passed over in literary criticism, once we become aware of the nuclear Cold War we see how fundamental it is to numerous novels and short stories. This reading changes, then, how we understand 1980s literature and culture: it is embedded in geopolitical contexts, traversing Britain and the United States. The literature of the 1980s is also highly pertinent now. It addresses humans’ place in the longer history of the planet that has recently been explored through the concept of the Anthropocene, and helps us think through our relations with technology and nature. It also reminds us how pressing nuclear issues continue to be and that we ignore them at our peril.

Protect–Protest: Introducing the Nuclear 1980s

The 1980s were characterised by fear of nuclear war and broad social divisions, erupting on both sides of the Atlantic. The introduction defines this late Cold War mindset, showing how it shaped the decade’s literature. Drawing on the terminology of the Protect and Survive civil defence campaign, which was countered by activists arguing people should Protest and Survive, the introduction theorises culture of the period through a protect–protest dynamic. It makes the case for reading the decade’s literature as “nuclear”. Not only are there many 1980s books directly about nuclear war, but the signature of the nuclear Cold War is there too in mainstream literature, from literary fiction to thrillers, graphic novels, family sagas, horror and children’s literature.

From the Ashes: Society and Economy in Nuclear Literature

The 1980s were characterised by deep divisions between supporters and opponents of the neoliberal reforms of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. The social and cultural schisms these disagreements produced run through literature of the period. Discussing works by Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Don DeLillo and Tim O’Brien, amongst others, the chapter shows how depictions of contemporary society map nuclear concerns into these broader social anxieties. It then turns to several fictions set after nuclear war, including novels by Louise Lawrence, Ursula Le Guin, Paul Cook, Robert Swindells and Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka, which use the trauma of nuclear destruction to project contemporary socio-economic theories into the future and explore how new kinds of society might emerge.

The Politics of Vulnerability: Protest and Nuclear Literature

Nuclear war was widely discussed in the 1980s and this chapter explores the representation in literature both of nuclear fears and of nuclear protest. In several texts nuclear anxieties are reworked via a politics of vulnerability, chiming with the distinctive tactics of nuclear activists, which flaunted human frailty strategically in an attempt to find a mode of protest renouncing the logics of violence.

Dust, Winter and Refuge: Environmentalism and Nuclear Literature

Nuclear literature of the 1980s is frequently an environmentalist literature, partly because environmentalists were key in shaping people’s understanding of the impact of nuclear technology. This chapter focuses on three key environmental images in nuclear literature—dust, winter and refuge—to argue that there was a concerted attempt to rethink the relations between humans, nature and technology. The dust of radioactive fallout, and the horrific predictions that “nuclear winter” would follow nuclear war, both feature prominently in nuclear fiction. Using these concerns to explore how the planet is changed by a human presence, the literature also redefines concepts of “refuge”, thinking of it less as a space in which to hide than as a new mindset for the nuclear age.

Burning Books: Textual Preoccupations of Nuclear and Postmodern Culture

Nuclear literature is surprisingly full of both ransacked libraries and characters who collect books. This chapter charts how, in numerous fictions, these images of books and libraries are used to explore Jacques Derrida’s concept of the “archive”: the written record that defines what it means to be human. Threats to the archive challenge our sense of the human.

Post-Containment Culture: Gender, Family and Society in the Late Cold War

Feminist campaigners were instrumental in revitalising nuclear activism in the 1980s and literature was preoccupied with issues of gender and family. This chapter shows how a late Cold War “post-containment” culture emerged, writing back to what’s frequently read by critics as the “containment” culture (a particular set of anxieties about home and family) of the early Cold War. It analyses novels by Maggie Gee and Richard Powers that depict the “nuclear” family of the late Cold War, then goes on to discuss how fictions set after nuclear war (by Louise Lawrence, Ursula Le Guin, Sheri Tepper and Vonda McIntyre) use this setting to imagine new kinds of personal and family relations.

The Most Explosive Love Story Ever: Transatlantic Nuclear Discourse

A famous satirical image, a spoof film poster for Gone with the Wind, depicts Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan embroiled in the “most explosive love story ever”, shadowed by a mushroom cloud. Controversial figures, their Cold War policies and socio-economic reforms provoked debate on both sides of the Atlantic, both about nuclear weapons and other issues.