Atomic Horror: Fears of Nuclear Technology in Gothic Literature, Film and Media
Whittall, Abigail and Hubner, Laura (2026) Atomic Horror: Fears of Nuclear Technology in Gothic Literature, Film and Media. Palgrave Macmillan. (In Press)
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While much work on the representation of nuclear power has focused on film and literature, this edited collection reveals that fears of nuclear power have also been expressed within television, online platforms, video games, tabletop games, theatre and audio work. By bringing together these different forms the edited collection elucidates similarities as well as drawing attention to media specificity, as many of the chapters consider why atomic horror has been explored via a particular medium, be it the Heads-Up Display or skill system of a video game, the use of a global map and atomic iconography in a board game, the ‘quality television’ category which lends prestige to the subject, or even a ‘media mix’ of different forms. We suggest that this range of forms finds distinctive ways to resonate where perhaps other modes of communication and information, such as news reports, may lose their powers of affective communication. The Gothic and horror especially can uncover the depth of societal fears and breadth of potential devastation that are often unspoken, lost and numbed within the statistics and data incorporated in news reports, documentaries and everyday discourse, when the subject matter itself has become an everyday horror despite being a steadily growing matter of concern globally, politically and ecologically. This edited collection argues that horror and the Gothic have been returned to time and again by creators and audiences as powerful tools to communicate one of the most significant challenges the world continues to face.
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