Tracing the Atom

This book is about nuclear legacies in Russia and Central Asia, focusing on selected sites of the Soviet atomic program, many of which have remained understudied. Nuclear operations, for energy or military purposes, demanded a vast infrastructure of production and supply chains that have transformed entire regions. In following the material traces of the atomic programs, contributors pay particular attention to memory practices and memorialization concerning nuclear legacies. Tracing the Atom foregrounds historical and contemporary engagements with nuclear politics: How have institutions and governments responded to the legacies of the atomic era? How do communities and artists articulate concerns over radioactive matters? What was the role of radiation expertise in a broader Soviet and international context of the Cold War? Examining nuclear legacies together with past atomic futures and post-Soviet memory and nuclear heritage, sheds light on how modes of knowing intersect with livelihoods, compensation policies, and historiography. Bringing together a range of disciplines – history, science and technology studies, social anthropology, literary studies, and art history – this volume offers insights that broaden our understanding of 20th century atomic programs and their long aftermaths

Tracing the Atom

This book is about nuclear legacies in Russia and Central Asia, focusing on selected sites of the Soviet atomic program, many of which have remained understudied. Nuclear operations, for energy or military purposes, demanded a vast infrastructure of production and supply chains that have transformed entire regions. In following the material traces of the atomic programs, contributors pay particular attention to memory practices and memorialization concerning nuclear legacies. Tracing the Atom foregrounds historical and contemporary engagements with nuclear politics: How have institutions and governments responded to the legacies of the atomic era? How do communities and artists articulate concerns over radioactive matters? What was the role of radiation expertise in a broader Soviet and international context of the Cold War? Examining nuclear legacies together with past atomic futures and post-Soviet memory and nuclear heritage, sheds light on how modes of knowing intersect with livelihoods, compensation policies, and historiography. Bringing together a range of disciplines – history, science and technology studies, social anthropology, literary studies, and art history – this volume offers insights that broaden our understanding of 20th century atomic programs and their long aftermaths

Staging Port Cities: Place and Nation in the Theatre of Yuyachkani, Bando de Teatro Olodum and Catalinas Sur.

PhDThis doctoral thesis examines theatre as a site for counteracting hegemonic representations of the nation. My focus is on three contemporary Latin American theatre companies and the ways in which they stage the sense of place of the port cities where they are based. By examining these groups’ explorations of the political and social imaginaries related to these ports, I aim to determine how theatre can challenge essentialised discourses of national identity. An examination of the Peruvian theatre group Yuyachkani allows me to look at the place of indigenous peoples in Lima. Through a discussion of Catalinas Sur, based in Buenos Aires, I highlight the cultural identities newly produced and those erased as a consequence of mid-nineteenth-century European immigration to the city. The focus on Bando de Teatro Olodum facilitates a consideration of struggles against racial discrimination towards Afro-Brazilians in Salvador, Bahia. I propose close readings of specific productions devised by these troupes that concentrate on three main topics. The first of these is migration, examining how foreigners have infused difference in these ports. The second theme looks at conceptions of time and the third considers notions of space. In all three cases the focus allows for a questioning of dominant discourses on modernity, order and progress. Such rhetoric has been equally predominant in Peru, Brazil and Argentina and has justified exclusivist accounts of the nation since the early histories of these republics. Through recourse to performance analysis, I examine theatre’s capacity to shift the focal point of interest towards the borders of mainstream society. My claim is that this perspective allows room for presences that have been historically rendered mute and also helps to draw attention to modes of social and political organisation that differ from those naturalised by national elites.Queen Mary University of London Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS, UK)