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WiSe 22/23: The Literary Legacy of Nuclear Disaster: Chernobyl and Fukushima

Gregor Wolfgang Hens

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Topic: The moment the news of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster broke in April 1986, European writers and intellectuals began to plan their literary and essayistic responses. In Germany, the sociologist Ulrich Beck added a new preface to his popular book Risk Society, observing that a "doubling of the world has taken place in the nuclear age. The threat of the world behind the world remains completely inaccessible to our senses." Christa Wolf began work on her book Accident – A Day's News just weeks after the disaster. The Ukrainian doctor, writer and activist Yuriy Shcherbak, the Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the eminent German writer Alexander Kluge all began collecting interviews and materials for their works of oral history. Program: We will consider the literature of nuclear disaster from 1986 to the present, comparing Chernobyl to selected literary responses to the Fukushima accident of 2011, and attempt to show some major tendencies in these works. Some questions we may ask as we read them: How do writers capture the invisible threat of radiation? What is the larger political context they operate in? What forms can literature take in the face of disasters that are both local and global, and whose consequences exceed normal human temporality? Can I take this course? You should be interested in literary and cultural studies, and be familiar with the basic story of the Chernobyl disaster. Good starting points are the HBO mini-series Chernobyl and the book Chernobyl – History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy. Further reading materials for the course will made available for purchase at Copy Repro Center, Habelschwerdter Allee 37 in Dahlem. Requirements and Grading: In order to earn 5 ECTS points, students will have to attend at least 80% of all class sessions, including at least one of the first two sessions of the semester. The instructor reserves the right to refuse admission after week two. Students will have to carefully read all assigned texts; participate actively in class discussions; present a topic to the class; and pass the final exam. close

16 Class schedule

Regular appointments

Tue, 10:00 - 12:00 16 Class schedule

Tue, 2022-10-18 10:00 - 12:00

Lecturers:
Gregor Hens