Description
This paper makes the case that there are three critical reasons for scholars of nuclear politics to take popular culture seriously. These three reasons can be thought of in terms of the platform, the properties, and the personal. Firstly, citizens are rarely given the time and space to think about nuclear weapons – with levels of secrecy and lack of democratic deliberation inherent to nuclear policy. Popular culture is one of the most significant platforms where citizens are given – usually hours – of time to engage with nuclear weapons. Secondly, the material reality of nuclear weapons (subatomic processes, nuclear fission, radioactivity) makes them impossible to directly observe or describe without the use of abstraction and metaphor. Many properties of nuclear weapons themselves are conceivable only through visual imaginaries and fictional exploration. Finally, too often nuclear weapons are thought of as an artefact of a bygone era, or a terrifying possible future. This paper argues that popular culture is a necessary tool for changing these imagined bounds of time, bringing nuclear weapons into the personal, the everyday, and the here and now.
