Filling the Hole in the Nuclear Future: Art and Popular Culture Respond to the Bomb

by Robert Jacobs, Mick Broderick (Contribution by), John Canaday (Contribution by), Tom Engelhardt (Contribution by), Carole Gallagher (Contribution by)

Overview

From the dawn of the atomic age, art and popular culture have played an essential role interpreting nuclear issues to the public and investigating the implications of nuclear weapons to the future of human civilization. Political and social forces often seemed paralyzed in thinking beyond the advent of nuclear weapons and articulating a creative response to the dilemma posed by this apocalyptic technology. Art and popular culture are uniquely suited to grapple with the implications of the bomb and the disruptions in the continuity of traditional narratives about the human future endemic to the atomic age. Filling the Hole in the Nuclear Future explores the diversity of visions evoked in American and Japanese society by the mushroom cloud hanging over the future of humanity during the last half of the twentieth century. It presents historical scholarship on art and popular culture alongside the work of artists responding to the bomb, as well as artists discussing their own work. From the effect of nuclear testing on sci-fi movies during the mid-fifties in both the U.S. and Japan, to the socially engaged visual discussion about power embodied in Japanese manga, Filling the Hole in the Nuclear Future takes readers into unexpected territory

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739135570
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	04/12/2010
Series:	AsiaWorld
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	290
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Robert Jacobs is an associate professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute of Hiroshima City University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Foreword: Hiroshima Story Tom Engelhardt xi

Introduction: Filling the Hole in the Nuclear Future Robert Jacobs 1

1 Fetch-Lights and Grocery Lists: Metaphors and Nuclear Weapons John Canaday 9

2 Poems from Critical Assembly John Canaday 29

3 Robots, A-Bombs, and War: Cultural Meanings of Science and Technology in Japan Around World War II Kenji Ito 63

4 The Day the Sun Was Lost (from the film Taiyo wo Nakushita Hi) Minoru Maeda 99

5 The Summer You Can't Go Back To (from the manga Kaeranai Natsu) Naoko Maeda 119

6 "The Buck Stops Here": Hiroshima Revisionism in the Truman Years Mick Broderick 135

7 Godzilla and the Bravo Shot: Who Created and Killed the Monster? Yuki Tanaka 159

8 Thank You, Mr. Avedon Carole Gallagher 171

9 Target Earth: The Atomic Bomb and the Whole Earth Robert Jacobs 187

10 Nuclear Culture Judy Hiramoto 207

11 Nuclear Fear 1987-2007: Has Anything Changed? Has Everything Changed? Spencer Weart 229

Index 267

About the Contributors 275

Editorial Reviews

These sobering yet very readable essays from Japanese and American scholars, activists, and cultural creators explore a fascinating array of artistic and popular-cultural responses to the atomic bomb, the Cold War nuclear arms race, and the proliferation threats that dominate today's headlines.

Paul S. Boyer

Lively and thought-provoking. A nice mix of nationalities, of artists and scholars, of prose and poetry and artwork, of demonstration and oral history and analysis.

Richard H. Minear

These sobering yet very readable essays from Japanese and American scholars, activists, and cultural creators explore a fascinating array of artistic and popular-cultural responses to the atomic bomb, the Cold War nuclear arms race, and the proliferation threats that dominate today's headlines.--Paul S. Boyer, author of By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age

Lively and thought-provoking. A nice mix of nationalities, of artists and scholars, of prose and poetry and artwork, of demonstration and oral history and analysis.--Richard H. Minear, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Recommended.--CHOICE

From the Publisher

Recommended.

CHOICE

Lively and thought-provoking. A nice mix of nationalities, of artists and scholars, of prose and poetry and artwork, of demonstration and oral history and analysis.

Richard Minear

This reader found much to think about in this volume.

Public Affairs

Recommended.

Choice Reviews

This reader found much to think about in this volume.

June 2011 Public Affairs

Recommended.

Choice