Many of the effects of nuclear fallout and radiation have been intentionally hidden by governments around the world.
Posted: 25th July 2024
Many of the effects of nuclear fallout and radiation have been intentionally hidden by governments around the world. Public knowledge has been driven by activists demanding recognition and justice. Many Downwinders have fought for years, in the press and in the courts, to have their health and environmental concerns taken seriously. Just as radiation is invisible, many of these stories continue to be unseen.
Here’s a book - and an online book club with the editor and some of the authors- that tells these stories.
From 2017 to 2020, Jacob Hamblin and Linda Richards facilitated the Oregon State University Downwinders Project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, to support research and scholarship on the Downwinders cases near the Hanford nuclear site in Washington. Additionally, each summer the project team sponsored a workshop that brought a variety of stakeholders together to explore the science, history, and lived history of radiation exposure. These workshops took a broad view of nuclear contamination, beyond Hanford, beyond the United States, and beyond academia. Community members and activists presented their testimonies and creative work alongside scholars studying exposure worldwide.
Making the Unseen Visible collects some of the best work arising from the project and its workshops. Scholarly research chapters and reflective essays cover topics and experiences ranging from colonial nuclear testing in North Africa to uranium mining in the Navajo Nation and battles over public memory around Hanford. Scholarship on nuclear topics has largely happened on a case study basis, focusing on individual disasters or locations. Making the Unseen Visible brings a variety of current community and scholarly work together to create a clearer, larger web uniting nuclear humanities research across time and geography.
LEARN MORE AND RESERVE YOUR SPOT HERE.
In September 2024, World BEYOND War will be holding a weekly discussion each of four weeks of Making the Unseen Visible: Science and the Contested Histories of Radiation Exposure, with the co-editor Linda Marie Richards and various contributing authors.
When you register for the club, we’ll send you a paperback edition of the book.
We’ll let you know which parts of the book will be discussed each week along with the Zoom details to access the discussions.
When: For one hour on four Sundays, September 1, 8, 15, 22, 2024 at 18:00 UTC. That’s Sunday at 8 a.m. in Honolulu, 11 a.m. in Los Angeles, 12 noon in Mexico City, 2 pm in New York, 7 pm in Yaoundé, 8 pm in Berlin, 9:30 pm in Tehran.
SIGN UP NOW TO RECEIVE THE BOOK WITH TIME TO READ IT.
Often when we send out an email, a book club will sell out. But you can beat the email crowd by going ahead and signing up for any of these future book clubs:
In October 2024, World BEYOND War will be holding a weekly discussion each of four weeks of Emplaced Resistances in Occupied Palestine: Stories of a Village, Its People, and Their Land, with the author Suzanne Hassan Hammad.
In November 2024, World BEYOND War will be holding a weekly discussion each of four weeks of Threats: Intimidation and Its Discontents, with the author David Barash.
In December 2024, World BEYOND War will be holding a weekly discussion each of four weeks of Titans of Capital: How Concentrated Wealth Threatens Humanity, with the author Peter Phillips.
Enjoy!
—World BEYOND War