PHYS 280 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Nuclear weapons, their destructive force and diplomatic potential, have transformed the modern imagination. They've given us a heightened sense of our technical genius and technological progress, but also of our foolishness and mortality. Artists have responded to these developments with horror and with humor. We thought you might enjoy exploring their responses to nuclear weapons, as a way to enrich your course experience.
Propaganda
Duck and Cover with "Bert the Turtle" (1951, American, Official Civil Defense Film produced in cooperation with the Civil Defense Administration, in consultation with the Safety Commission of the National Education Association)
Cartoons
Cartooning the Bomb (slideshow from 1945-present)
Podcasts
Super Critical Podcast: "explores the portrayal of nuclear weapons in film, television, and other pop culture outlets" (hosted by Timothy Westmyer; see also @NuclearPodcast on Twitter)
Graphic Novels
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "Comics, Graphic Novels, and the Nuclear Age" (26 October 2015)
- Weapons of Mass Diplomacy, 2012 (Antonin Baudry, French)
- Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb, 2012 (Jonathan Fetter-Vorm, American)
- Fallout:J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and the Political Science of the Atomic Bomb, 2001 (Janine Johnston, Jim Ottaviani, Jeffrey Jones, and Chris Kemple, American)
- Watchmen series, 1986–1987 (Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins, British)
- Struck by Black Rain, 1966 (Nakazawa Keiji, Japanese)
- Barefoot Gen, 1973–1985 (Nakazawa Keiji, Japanese)
Poems
PBS News online exhibit: Hiroshima in Four Poems
Baron Wormser, "March 1984: I Try to Explain to My Children a Newspaper Article Which Says That According to a Computer a Nuclear War is Likely to Occur in the Next Twenty Years" (continued on following page), Poetry
Fiction
- Pat Frank, Alas, Babylon
- Walter M. Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz
- James Morrow, This is the Way the World Ends
- George Orwell, 1984
- Kim Stanley Robinson, The Wild Shore
- Neville Shute, On the Beach
- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
Dance
Warning -- May disturb some viewers.
Butoh, the Dance of Darkness, the Dance of Death and Disease, a mode of Japanese avant-garde dance theater that has been described as "the art of a distressed Japan shattered by the Second World War and the nuclear bombing." Butoh literarally translates as stamping on the ground; figuratively, it is, a ritual dance that awakens the spirits of the dead.
- Selected videos: 1) Butoh founder Kazuo Ono (approx. 1980); (2) Documentary on Butoh, Piercing the Mask; (3) As a global expression: Imre Thorman (Swiss butoh dancer) at Hiyoshi Taisha Shrine in Shiga, Japan, Summer 2006; (4) Sankai Juku butoh performance troup at Battersea Power Station (1982) and in film Kinkan Shonen (2009)
- NYT Magazine article on Butoh around 30 years after its beginnings
Music
Andrews Sisters & Danny Kaye, Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo), 1947 cw/tw: racist / colonialist (see Games: Fallout)
David Bowie, Bombers, Hunky Dory, 1971
Kate Bush, Breathing, Never Forever, 1980
Bob Dylan, Masters of War, live performance (written 1963)
Landscape, Einstein A Go Go, From the Tea-Rooms of Mars, 1981
The Postal Service, We Will Become Silouettes, Give Up, 2003
Prince, 1999, 1999, 1982
Queen, Hammer to Fall, The Works, 1984
Radiohead, Four Minute Warning, In Rainbows, 2007
Rush, Manhattan Project, Power Windows, 1985, and Distant Early Warning, Grace Under Pressure, 1984
Sting, "Russians," The Dream of the Blue Turtles, 1985
Talking Heads, "Listening Wind," Remain in Light, 1980
The The, Armageddon Days are Here Again, Mind Bomb, 1989
Tom Waits, The Earth Died Screaming, Bone Machine, 1992
Children's Toys
Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab, Atlas Obscura video on "The World's Most Dangerous Toy"
Digital Games
Fallout (series), Interplay Entertainment, 22nd and 23rd century atompunk retrofuturistic roleplaying games
Photography
New Yorker, Michael Koerner, My DNA (9 December 2018)
Other Visual Arts
The Doomsday Clock, artist Martyl Langsdorf (spouse of a Manhattan Project scientist) -- status timeline
Film
There are many post-apocalyptic films that use as their premise the devastation of the earth following nuclear war. Some include the nuclear monster flicks that were popular from the 1950s on (e.g., Godzilla) and classics like A Boy and His Dog (1975), based on the 1969 Harlan Ellison novella. The films below depict nuclear war or the imminent threat of nuclear war -- these are just a selection of those available. (Bolded entries are mentioned in class.)
In This Corner of the World (2016, Japanese) -- an animated, dramatic film that tells the story of a woman before and after the bombing of Hiroshima
Thirteen Days (2000, American) -- focuses on JFK's handling of the Cuban missle crisis
Deterrence (1999, American)
The Peacemaker (1997, American)
Crimson Tide (1995, American)
By Dawn's Early Light (1990, American)
Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes (1990, American)
Fat Man and Little Boy (1989, American) -- dramatizes the Manhattan Project (Paul Newman is General Leslie Groves)
Miracle Mile (1988, American) -- if you can believe it, a romantic comedy
When the Wind Blows (1986, British) -- animated film based on a novel by a children's book author about a middle-aged British couple's slow death from fallout following a nuclear strike
Countdown to Looking Glass (1984, Canadian)
Testament (1983, American) -- similar to The Day After and Threads in its focus on the effects of a nuclear strike on everyday people
Threads (1984, British) -- a version of The Day After, set in England; has been called "a film which comes closest to representing the full horror of nuclear war and its aftermath" (Perrine, Film and the Nuclear Age, Taylor & Francis: 1998)
The Day After (1983, American) -- said to have influenced presidents, widely viewed when aired
Barefoot Gen (1983, Japanese) -- animated film portraying the bombing of Hiroshima from a child's perspective, based on the manga series
Wargames (1983, American) -- shall we play a game? a supercomputer takes simulated war games too far...
Special Bulletin (1983, American)
The Missiles of October (1974, American) -- focuses on the Cuban missile crisis
Fail-Safe (1964, American)
Seven Days in May (1964, American) -- JFK encouraged the director to make the film, warning about military decision-makers attempting to usurp civilian authority over nuclear weapons
Dr Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, American and British) -- political satire
Nine Days of One Year (1963, Soviet) -- multi award-winning drama about a physicist whose anxiety over the consequences of his nuclear experiments to the planet is mirrored by his own fatal irradiation
The Last War (1961, Japanese)
Atomic Attack (1954, American) -- credited with inspiring later apocalyptic films, this Motorola Hour tv movie shows a suburban housewife living near NYC when it is hit by an H-bomb and taking in refugees
Invasion USA (1952, American)
Television Series
Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (Season 1, Amazon Prime); see George M. Moore's critique of the inaccurate portrayal of the tech (dirty bomb: cesium 137 dispersal device)
Game of Thrones (HBO); Are dragons a proxy for nuclear deterrence in GOT? Read the debate in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Documentaries
Could We Geoengineer Ourselves Out of Climate Change? (2019, American) -- PBS/RetroReport short documentary, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, on nuclear winter
The Man Who Saved the World (2014, Danish) -- documentary about Stanislav Petrov, a former lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces who prevented escalation during a nuclear false alarm incident
Last Best Chance (2005, American) -- docudrama produced by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the MacArthur Foundation (associated website)
The Bomb (2005, American) -- PBS documentary on the history of the development of nuclear weapons
On the Eighth Day (1984, British) -- BBC documentary on nuclear winter, with scientist interviews
Eight Minutes to Midnight: A Portrait of Dr. Helen Caldicott (1981, American) -- nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, this film portrays Dr. Caldicott's anti-nuclear weapons activism
The War Game (1965, British) -- won an Oscar for Best Documentary, even though it is a fictionalized account of nuclear war (initially banned from television for being too distressing)
Oral Histories & Diaries
Voices of the Manhattan Project, Atomic Heritage Foundation
98-year old UI Physics alumnus William Koch shares his experience working on the Manhattan Project at the University of Denver's Knoebel Institute on Healthy Aging
Issues Journalism and Exhibits
Atomic Animal Testing
3,352 animals were exposed to atom-bomb blasts in Operation Crossroads in 1946. Nearly 1,200 pigs were exposed to biomedical experiments and blast tests in Operation Plumbob in 1957.
- U.S. National Library of Medicine Online Exhibit: Animals as Cold Warriors: Missiles, Medicine, and Man's Best Friend
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History blog post: Pig 311 and Operation Crossroads
- Cold War LA's article: SFVA Goat Memorial
- (Warning -- Disturbing) De-Classified DOE video #0800022 of Biomedial Effects Testing in Operation Plumbbob (27 May-7 October 1957, Nevada Test Site)
- PBS Documentary: Dark Circle (1982)
Public Intellectual Debate (Popularized Research)
Well-known debate on "The Long Peace" and its implications between Steven Pinker (The Better Angel of Our Natures, 2011 -- see Chapter 4) and his critics, particularly Nassim Taleb (statistical expert with a background in mathematical finance). The main topic under debate is whether the major world powers' tendency toward war has declined (since the end of WWII) and whether this means we are at less danger of a catastrophic incident such as a nuclear strike (with implications for military spending needs and the national security versus social welfare argument around these). See here for a journalistic article (Vox, 21 May 2015) about the debate.
For presentation and starter summary of The Better Angels of Our Nature, see Pinker's Gifford Lecture at the University of Edinburgh and the Wikipedia entry on the book.
Taleb's charge: "The Long Peace is a Statistical Illusion"
Pinker's response: "Fooled by Belligerence: Comments on Nassim Taleb’s 'The Long Peace is a Statistical Illusion'"
Another Pinker critic who has weighed in, John Gray (philosopher) in "Steven Pinker is Wrong about Violence and War" (The Guardian 3, March 2015).
Multimedia & Performance Art
AMNESIA ATÓMICA, collaboration between sculptor Pedro Reyes and dance troupe NOHBORDS (commissioned by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists), debuted 14 February 2020 in Tlatelolco, Mexico
Walking the Bomb, Stephen Whisler, 2016–2017
Historical and Cultural Heritage Institutions & Groups
Atomic Heritage Foundation, preserving and interpreting the Manhattan Project (in partnership with the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History)
Nuclear Cultural Heritage, a research networking project that aims to establish links between national and international nuclear cultural heritage researchers and the heritage sector on the one hand, and the nuclear sector on the other
Please send any new suggestions here.