Blog Prompts for Nuclear Futures Course, due by March 12 (Group A)

Choose one of the following options:

1. Drawing on Treat’s examination of truth and fact and our discussion of “knowing” and “understanding” atomic atrocities in week five, consider the specific form employed by Svetlana Alexievich in representing the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. How does Alexievich’s unique literary approach conform to and/or defy conventional categorizations (e.g. oral history, testimonial, reportage, pastiche, etc.) in order to represent the Chernobyl catastrophe?
2. Discuss Alina Bronsky’s critique of global neoliberalism and Western narratives of progress through her depiction of an intentional community of Chernobyl returnees in Baba Dunja’s Last Love. Your answer might specifically address Bronsky’s use of humor and a pop idiom in developing this critical depiction of the surprising futurities nuclear disasters might open onto.
3. In her essay on literary accounts of nuclear disaster, Katharina Gerstenberger suggests that literature is uniquely suited to facilitating a shared sense of catastrophe that can help us “to comprehend and combat global environmental threats” (145). Reflect on the strategies employed by at least two of the literary texts we have read so far this semester, considering how they foster collective forms of understanding and affect around shared environmental threats.