Temporality is a central, maybe the central concern in Dark. A fundamental concept within the series is the theory that history repeats itself in a 33-year cycle and that “the distinction between past, present and future is nothing but an illusion.” In addition to this, Dark builds on an intricately woven web of secrets, mystical predictions, and intrigue. The serialized form makes it possible to unveil mysteries and to draw connections across different time lines. In this vein, the serialization and the non-linear uncovering of mysteries by means of an inherently linear medium, namely the order of scenes being intricately planned out, also mirrors a central outcome of the season: The realization that the mysteries that open up in earlier installments of the series are not explained by what is revealed later but rather the interventions that seem intent to change the course of events are actually what set said events in motion.

Nuclear power is merely a factor and a backdrop for different points in history but not a sinister cause of events. The nuclear power plant in Winden in particular, and Germany’s history with nuclear power in general are mostly a looming presence throughout the series and a mysterious threat that does not become a reality until the very end. While there were shady things going on at the power plant, some radioactivity was released, and the viewer is led to believe that the rips in time are somehow linked to the sinister things going on at the power plants, the radioactivity of the reactor and the work there are not what causes the rips in time and what causes the events of the series in any of its timelines[1]. The actions and activities of people determine the events and set events in motion, while the power plant is just a mysterious backdrop, during the first season because it spite of some shady things going on, the reactor was mostly stable and under control. After the creation of a worm hole in 2019 (and 1953), it can be assumed that the reactor was no longer stable and caused a major fall out, which changes the “future” of Germany after nuclear power when Jonas wakes up. The consequences of the worm hole likely caused an event in the reactor that may go beyond the scope of Chernobyl or Fukushima and determined Germany’s nuclear future but this is not what the first season addresses.

To return to the main concern, the connection between temporality and serialization: What the series presents and discusses as predeterminism, fate, or destiny, turns out to be a series of self-fulfilling or reverse engineered causalities. Jonas, trying to destroy the rip in time by leaving his 2019-self in the power-chamber, actually creates the rip in time that could be called the beginning, namely him touching Egon through the worm hole and waking up dreaming about him, a scene that happens in episode 1 and 10. Ulrich, trying to save Mikkel by killing Helge, actually put him in the chamber that eventually turned him into Noah’s puppet. Ulrich also feels that Egon Tiedemann is biased against him and even thinks he is the antichrist, when in reality, Egon thinks that because Ulrich was accused of murdering Erik and Yasin in 1953.

Although the nuclear reactor does not trigger the events, the series nevertheless discusses the effects of nuclear power on health and society. In 2019, very few people in Winden actively work at the power plant but as several characters in different time lines, particularly Bernd Doppler in 1986 discuss, the livelihood of the whole town still depends on the power plant. In 1986, the effects of Chernobyl are felt and discussed in the news and they affect the power plant as well. They make people feel unsure about nuclear power. But more than that, at this time, Charlotte is already documenting mysterious spots on bird carcasses that are later attributed to a mutation caused by radiation so there must be a cause irrespective of and prior to Chernobyl to cause such mutations. We may believe this was caused by the Winden reactor. Another possible mutation could be the fact that Elizabeth is deaf in a family where deafness is not hereditary, as is another child her age in this small town. Regina Tiedemann is diagnosed with cancer, which, as an individual case, cannot be attributed to the existence of nuclear power, but in the suggestive and elusive context of the series, we cannot help but wonder if proximity to radioactive materials may have had its effect on her.

[1] In 1953, investors are planning to build the first power plant and praise the future with nuclear power. In episode 6, one investor threatens others directly not to interfere with the power plant and spews conspiracy theories. This enhances the impression that the power plant is a central, sinister factor in the course of events, a conclusion that is not yet born out by evidence. 1986 revolves around the fall out in Chernobyl but also mentions a minor release of radioactivity a the Winden plant. In 2019, the worm hole and the disruption it caused, likely results in a major nuclear event that changes Germany’s nuclear future.

(Ichi-F 69)

Katsuma Susumu’s Devil Fish and Tatsuta Kazuto’s Ichi-F depict the precarity of the workers in a matter of fact way that borders on brutal honesty, and that humanizes them at the same time. Their lives are steeped in precarity not just because of their hard, manual labor, protective measures that do not protect them from exposure but are merely intended to prevent them from spreading contamination, and the acceptance of their risk and of protective protocols that cannot protect; the conditions of their work alone are not what makes these workers into nuclear gypsies. Their exclusion from society as something other, something to be feared, something dirty, adds to their precarity. Within this situation of precarity however, both mangas take great care to also depict the community and comradery between workers. This is what humanizes them and may help identify the precarity of their situation. Additionally, the medium of the manga also serves as an important vehicle for the depiction of the unrepresentable that allows us to identify the precarity of these laborers.

One of the most basic elements of precarity, the lack of stable work and steady incomes is apparent in Ichi-F but not directly addressed as such. Throughout Chapter 0, the reader learns why Kazuto Tatsuta decided to work at the plant in spite of not being from the area. Among other reasons, he was attracted by the high pay, but quickly learns that he and his fellow workers don’t make enough money to afford more than cheap fast food. This is accentuated by the fact that every worker is very restricted in the amount of work their can do for the company, not by the company itself but by he amount of exposure that’s permissible, resulting in some workers being out of work for several months after they have reached the maximum amount of exposure. Additionally, the high pay (with hazard bonus) is only awarded to the most hazardous jobs, meaning that in order to make a lot of money, the workers also have to incur a lot of risk to their health. In Devil Fish, this risk to their health becomes apparent when two workers discuss another worker who looks ten years older than he is (36).

The precarity is worsened by the lip-service to control and protocol that do not protect the workers from exposure but are primarily prevent them from spreading contamination. Both mangas depict these measures with almost eerie similarity. The companies that employ these workers in precarity and government try to conceal the risk of the work conditions with meticulous protocols. In both mangas the protocols are so elaborate that both writers spend a significant amount of time and panels depicting them. The nuclear protocols, albeit more sophisticated in Ichi-F seems almost timeless due to their overall similarity in both mangas. E.g. in spite of new developments in nuclear detection and hopefully protection, all workers know to use of two pairs of socks as if they decrease the risk. Still, the laborers adhere to the protective measures with practiced regularity but in the awareness that these measures are not intended to protect them from exposure to radiation, e.g. “APDs set to our planned exposure amount for the day.” (Ichi-F 18) In Devil Fish, the “trainer” worker is even more explicit in his explanation to his student: “Don’t think of it as protecting your body . . . It’s so you don’t take radiation out when you leave” (Devil Fish 34) This awareness also becomes particularly apparent when the injured worker in Devil Fish and another worker with a heart attack were not taken to proper medical care because immediate evacuation would have spread the nuclear contamination. In Ichi-F, the description of the protective measures is so practiced for the narrator that he switches between narrating the measures and prescribing them almost as if he’s writing a training manual for people seeking to join in the decontamination efforts. By following protocols of protection, the companies have convinced the workers that they do whatever possible to keep them safe, and the workers, following said protocols, have accepted that this is the least worst option in their situation. This is what defines their precarity, their willing or rather unwitting acceptance of the risk they incur because they have no other option.

In their precarity, though, the workers have found ways to cope and support each other with something akin to comradery. The narrator in Ichi-F proclaims that he finds the mantra-like statement “Stay safe!” reassuring (22); the workers eat together and share a sense of purpose and revelry in their work; due to their close quarters and the necessity of protocols help each other adhere to them and remind each other; and the narrator becomes almost defensive when he points out that “’The Reality of Fukushima’ that the media rarely ever bothers to show” (36) also includes relaxation in the break room. When one worker has a headache, the whole group returns to the break room because they would be understaffed in an emergency. And even when the coworkers assume that the worker just wants a smoke, they don’t seem to exclude him but they share a laugh, which manifests their bond because they all share this state of precarity. In Devil Fish this comradery and support comes out throughout the teacher-student relationship which is, simultaneously, also the vehicle to tell the reader about the work conditions and protocols of the nuclear laborers.

The visual medium of the manga adds a significant dimension to the discussion about precariarity, namely that of representation, or rather of the attempt at representation that is impossible but nevertheless necessary. As Butler argues “There is something unrepresentable that we nevertheless seek to represent, and that paradox must be retained in the representation we give.” (144) In Devil Fish, this representation happens, for example, by visually representing the impossible to represent radiation exposure (13).

The radiation is counted by a radiation counter that emits a ping and doesn’t leave a visual impact. Yet to represent this impact in the workers, the illustrator adds the radiation to the worker who’s in the process of cleaning. Using a popular, visual medium like the manga to portray the nuclear laborers also serves to humanize the laborers and the subject matter. Although the protocols of decontamination attempt to control the uncontrollable, there are human beings behind said protocols, which become visible through their portrayal in these manga.

Works Cited:

Tatsuta, Kazuto. Ichi-F a Workers Graphic Memoir of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Kodansha Comics, an Imprint of Kodansha USA Publishinh, LLC, 2017.

Katsumata, Susumu. Fukushima: Devil Fish. Edited by Asakawa Mitsuhiro and Translated by Ryan Holmberg. Breakdown Press, 2015.

Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: the Powers of Mourning and Violence. Verso, 2006.

Education is not enough.

“To educate” is an easy/trope answer to the question what contributions and/or interventions the environmental humanities can make to address environmental issues. Education is important, no doubt but the knowledge about environmental issues is not enough. The knowledge so-to-say is out there and pretty much everyone is aware that we as human beings have an impact on the world we live in and that stewardship of the environment is important. Even people who deny the existence of climate change, usually under the guise of saying, there’s nothing to be done/doing something is too expensive, but they’ll admit, even if it is out of self-interest, that we should not destroy the environment. The difficulty arises when education is promoted as a straightforward answer, as if knowledge is the solution.

Creating compassion and empathy are the actual interventions the environmental humanities can make. As Bennett highlights in her piece on Vibrant Matter, everything is interconnected, and the most mundane items/objects are not just objects, they have a vibrant past, present and will persist in the future. The human subject stands in relation to them but is not superior to them. Therefore, the challenge of environmental humanities is to create compassion for the interconnectedness of matter. This means developing an understanding for even the things we actually cannot empathize with. The danger of this perspective of empathy might be that it still only values the environment from a human-centered perspective because that’s what we focalize human action through.

Highlighting only the impact that human action has on the environment would not go far enough, this might be a good start, but this once again would create a hierarchy that only values environmental issues in the way that it impacts humans, without focalizing the environment itself with all its constituting matter.

Highlighting the slow violence of environmental exploitation on the poor goes a step in the direction of creating empathy. Exporting waste to impoverished nations doesn’t get rid of said waste, it just puts it out of sight out of mind, where the poor have to deal with the consequences of the exploitation of others. The precarity comes from the fact that the poor seemingly “choose” to have slow violence exerted upon themselves. They decide to be exploited but because they do not really have a choice in the matter due to the dependence on the West, they are caught in a vicious circle, from which Nixon sees them emerging through environmentalism. They in his mind, emerge from the rubble of exploitation because they have no other choice. They see the impact that it has had on them and cannot but create and practice environmentalism.

Unfortunately, the third dimension of Nixon’s argument, the writer-activist seems to, once again, be founded in intellectualism rather than the environmentalism from the margins that he propagates. The writer-activist can certainly have an impact but their subject position seems to not come from within the ranks of the poor but an outsider position, in a way, once again, an educator, but educators who just transmit information, as heartfelt as they may be, are ineffective if they don’t create identification through empathy.

Martina